A Commander's Journal
by Alfirin1986
Summary: Shepard is recovering in Vancouver after the battle in London and the defeat of the Reapers. Part of her recovery is the assignment by her therapist to find a way to come to terms with everything that's happened. Written in first person POV. AU ending.
1. Chapter 1

Asphyxiation.

Kind of a depressing topic, isn't it? Yeah. It is. But it's the kind of thing you think about when it's happened to you. You might be wondering how I'm sitting here typing this if that's the case. It's a long story and really I don't even know all the gory details about how they brought me back, the ones lying in the stack of files over in the corner cabinet. Miranda brought them by the last time she visited. Where she got them I could only hazard a guess. How? I don't even want to know. I haven't been brave enough to look at them yet. Miranda says she can help when I have questions. Not if, but when. Shit.

Kaidan is lying on the couch. He's pretending to read but his eyes leave the page to glance in my direction far too often to actually call what he's doing reading. Sometimes he watches me like I'm just going to disappear right before his eyes. I might be annoyed if I didn't understand the feeling, if I didn't feel like he might disappear too.

He asked me once about—that day. God, why is it so hard to say? Is it because it sounds so implausible? So farfetched? I died. But I'm alive now. Anyway, I wasn't ready to talk about it then. At least that's what I told him and myself. I wasn't ready. He was so understanding; he told me he'd wait until I was but it has been over a year since he asked and I still don't feel ready. I don't know if I ever will.

Joker told me that they thought I died in the explosion. The empty coffin at the ceremony held by the Alliance was empty because there was no body to recover. In retrospect people's reaction to my being alive makes a lot more sense.

I take a deep breath and hear Kaidan shift on the couch. He doesn't speak but I know he's watching to see if it was more than a sigh, if I'm in pain. The recovery since our battle in London has been a long one and it's not done yet. I'm not as young as I used to be.

"That day," I say out loud. I stop myself; if I'm going to do this I'm going to do it right. "The day the Normandy was attacked…" Closer but still not right. "The day I died."

I don't turn towards Kaidan but I hear him sit up. I hear the book hit the floor with a dull thump. "Yeah?"

I don't start at the beginning because we both lived it. I don't start with our last night together or mention the breakfast we had shared in the mess hall. Instead I start when I turned to him and told him to get the others onto the shuttles while I went back for Joker.

"I didn't say what I wanted to say because it seemed like I would be admitting to myself that I wasn't going to make it," I say, my head bowing underneath the weight of those memories. "I told you to go, like it was an order." I realize in that moment that it was an order. It was an order so I could weigh the odds in his favor. An order so that he might live. I don't tell him that. He probably knows. "I wanted to say everything I felt, but we didn't have time."

_Deep breath, Shepard. _"I went back for Joker and he was still trying to save her. He would have thrown his life away trying to save her." If there was one thing I could count on to never change it was Joker's dedication to the Normandy. He would love that ship until the day he died.

Dying, yeah, that's what I was talking about, wasn't it? "We were heading towards the shuttle when they came around for another attack. I got Jeff in but the explosion… I was barely close enough to touch the panel and get the pod sealed but I did. I saved him."

Kaidan stands and moves across the room towards me. I feel his warmth at my back as his hands drop onto my shoulders, avoiding the jagged scar that still hurts when I push myself too hard or when the weather changes. "Yeah, you did."

It's just a simple acknowledgement but it's what I need. I don't need to be congratulated for something any XO should do for her pilot. I don't need to know that deep down there's still a part of him that is bitter over losing me.

"I think it was the next explosion that did it. I could hear the air hissing out, could tell by the burn in my lungs that I was in trouble." I remember it all. My lungs had screamed for oxygen that wasn't there. It was dark. It was so cold and silent. It had been in those moments as the Normandy disintegrated around me that I knew the end of my brief existence was fast approaching.

"Of all the ways I expected to go out that wasn't one of them," I admit. "I tried to find the leak even though I knew it was useless. I just wanted to fight."

Kaidan sinks down to sit beside my chair and as he leans his head against my thigh I realize all over again how lucky I am. He's so careful around me, probably more careful than he has to be now but it's just become a habit. I know I need to make it up to him. I want to make it up to him.

But first things first, I have to finish the little bit that's left of my story.

"You told me that your life flashed before your eyes on Mars and mine did too when I was spaced." It flashed before my eyes in London too, but that was another story for another day. "I remember thinking how much we had accomplished and still how inadequate it was. I remember thinking back further to Elysium and then Rio…" I trail off because it's not often I think about those days. It's not because they're particularly painful or enjoyable but simply because I was a different person then, living a different life. I push the memories aside for the moment, for once I know there will be time later, "…but mostly, Kaidan, I thought about you."

His brown eyes are intent on my face and my fingers hover at his temples, stroking the grey streaks in his hair. The corners of my mouth turn up as I do; he likes to tease me that I'm the one who put the grey there. Thinking back on everything we've gone through I don't really doubt it.

I tell him that I was thinking of him as my consciousness faded because it's true. I don't tell him about the pain. I don't tell him that I was begging by some miracle to survive. That would hurt him. It still hurts me. Maybe one day I'll work up the courage to tell him that.

But for now I'm content. I got my miracle. I'm alive.

I'm breathing.


	2. Chapter 2

**[Entry 002]**

That first entry was kind of cathartic. I didn't realize how much I missed writing in a journal. When I was a kid it was one of my favorite things to do. We moved around so much it helped me remember all the places we had been and friends that had come and gone. It's been… let's see… wow, sixteen years since I stopped.

I'm still not sure the therapist isn't deluded but I guess I'll try this for a while.

Karin came by today.

At first I thought maybe Kaidan had implored her to stop and check in on me since he's back to work full time, but the Serrice Ice Brandy in her hand quickly persuaded me otherwise. The day we usually shared a bottle had passed while I was still semi-comatose back in London. It was her turn to buy and she hadn't forgotten.

She hasn't seen me since I'd been stuck in a hospital bed, hasn't seen me on my feet since I lost one.

She offered to grab glasses. I wasn't wearing my prosthetic and was hobbling around with my crutches. I know I look like a sorry sight. When people come over or when I go out they always ask if they can do things for me, even when I wear my prosthetic. I don't blame them but I never accept. On all but the worst of days I'm determined to do things for myself.

I waved her out to the balcony as I snagged two from the cupboard.

Summer is in full swing and most days are filled with sunshine and beautiful views of English Bay. The sun sets late and most days Kaidan gets home before the light's gone and we sit outside with the beers he brings home in a paper sack. I miss the Normandy but there's a small part of me that could get used to life like this.

Karin had cracked open the bottle and she poured out two servings as I settled myself into the other chair.

She asked what our toast should be for this year. Last year we toasted simply being happily drunk; this year it seemed obvious. "To beating the Reapers."

We clinked our glasses and drank that first glass in silence. In peace.

I never really thought I'd get to this place. I always assumed that I'd die fighting the Reapers. It wasn't that I wanted to die; it was just that the odds had been stacked against me.

After I refilled our glasses we talked about Vancouver and the team. She's been in contact with most of them—more so than I have—and she filled me in. Garrus and Tali had both returned to help their respective fleets and are waiting for the relays to open. Vega stayed in London; he's helping with the rebuild there.

_**Note to self: I'm going to need to check on the N7 program and his status. Best talk to him about it first._

She hasn't spoken to Liara in a while but we both know she's been busy. The information she compiled on the relays for her "project" has been instrumental in rebuilding them.

As we talked about them I realized how much I missed seeing everyone every day. They were part of my crew, sure, but they were my closest friends. They had my back when things got hairy and it's hard to break bonds like that. I get emails from them but it's not the same.

Half the bottle disappeared before Chakwas excused herself. She had to get back to the city since she has an early shift tomorrow. There will be no sleeping it off in the med bay this time. I called her a cab and as we waited we made plans for next year. It will be my turn to buy.

We said good bye like we wouldn't see each other soon, even though we have plans for lunch when I come in for one of my appointments the day after tomorrow. Perhaps it's the brandy that made us hug each other a little too tightly as we parted ways at the door. Or perhaps it's because the relief of us reaching this anniversary is a little overwhelming. We never thought we'd see this day. Even though I told her back on the Normandy that it would come I'm not sure either of us really believed it. She patted my cheek and we both smiled and chuckled as she did so. Yes, definitely the brandy.

At least that's what I'll tell myself.


	3. Chapter 3

**[Entry 003]**

Kaidan and I got in a fight today.

We've argued before; we've even had some all-out shouting matches but this was the worst we've ever gone at it…wow, that sounds like how some heartsick teenager would start off their daily diary entry.

_Dear Diary, Kaidan and I had like the worst fight EVER today._

Okay, no, I will not revert back to the incorrigible high school student I was eighteen years ago, even if Kaidan saying I'm as moody as an incorrigible high school student makes me want to. We've both done enough of that. We both cursed and slammed doors. We've both thrown things. He shut himself in the bedroom and turned the radio on at full blast. I fumed at the wall between us and then slammed the front door behind me as I made my own retreat.

Leaving wasn't the most well thought out plan of action but I needed some space. We both did. I still do. That's why I'm typing this from a park bench, my crutches leaning against my leg because I left in such a hurry that I hadn't thought to put on my prosthetic. I don't really care; I'm feeling ambivalent about it today.

I do however care about my pain meds. I left those behind and my body is starting to complain. I jogged on the treadmill yesterday. Not for very long, mind you. I am sorely out of shape and my body protested every step of the way. It's starting to scream at me now.

Great, like I need something else screaming at me.

I know I've been up and down a little—okay, a lot more than usual lately. I'm not sure exactly why. If I knew I would change it. I know it makes me difficult to live with sometimes. Doesn't he see that? I don't like these mood swings; this isn't me! This isn't the person I used to be and the person I'd like to be again. I want to be the calm, cool Shepard that I was before but I can't just regrow my lost leg, shed all my scars and get over everything that's happened!

We thought this would be cut and dry._ I_ thought this would be cut and dry. We would beat the Reapers and be done with it. I should have known better. Life doesn't go back to the way it was before. It never does. The choices we make haunt us until the day we die, it doesn't matter if the outcome is good or bad.

Maybe that's what's bothering me. Choices, I mean. And having to live with the consequences.

Ash will have died five years ago next Friday. I think about her every day. I think about the fact that her dying was the direct result of a decision I made. Me. No one else. I could have saved her but that would have meant leaving Kaidan behind; maybe it was weakness on my part, maybe selfishness. I wasn't able to give him up.

Our friends assure me that it's not my fault. Blame the Reapers, they tell me and for a time I did. But now the Reapers are gone and Ash is still dead.

The Alliance likes to tell the bereaved that their loved ones died protecting us. That they died courageously.

I've learned that dying a hero is little consolation to the families crying themselves to sleep at night.

I'll have to ask mom what they told her when the Collector's took out the Normandy and me along with it. Maybe they just said I was killed in action. Did they tell her I died a hero? If they did, did it help? Not that my family's the example we should base things off of. Military service is in our blood. Sometimes I think that's the most ingrained thing about us Shepards. We're more in tune with what it means to be a solider than what it means to be a mother, father, daughter. Don't get me wrong; we're close. To a point.

Maybe I'll ask her. Then again, maybe I won't. It might stir up emotions she'd rather keep to herself. Just another choice.

The sky is growing dark and I know I should be heading back. I've been out for hours and my hips and leg are aching.

My omni-tool chirps. It's Kaidan. I don't answer.

I let the bitter part of me say he's only calling because it's getting dark and I'm out by myself. He just wants to make sure I didn't get run over by a car while trying to cross the street. It'd be a hassle for him. Lots of paperwork. I say it out loud even though I know he's a way better person than that.

There are children playing in the park behind me, their laughter a small reminder of the good we protected by defeating the Reapers. Their parents call them back to the cars, tell them to say good bye to their friends. It's time for dinner. It's time to go home. A couple shuttles pass overhead and the steady hum of their drive cores is familiar and comforting. I close my eyes and wait until the sound fades in the distance.

My omni-tool chirps again. I have a message.

I wedge my crutches under my arms and push myself up with a wince.

I've learned a lot of things. I've learned how to shoot a Black Widow sniper rifle without knocking my arm out of socket. I've learned how the Krogan initiate their children into adulthood. I've learned that there's more to life than work.

I still need to learn how to live with the choices I've made. Choices like leaving one of your friends behind because you couldn't save them both.

Choices like walking out when things got tough.

Or making the choice to suck it up and walk back in.


	4. Chapter 4

**[Entry 004]**

I'm sitting outside my therapist's office forty minutes before my appointment's scheduled.

Usually it's a battle to get me here on time because it's one of those things I just hate doing but Kaidan and I are still not talking so I was resigned to take public transportation and abide by their schedule. The angry tension we had going has dissipated but neither of us has apologized and neither of us wants to be the first to concede we were wrong…and really I'm the only one that should be conceding anything. Kaidan was right; I'm entirely too stubborn.

I've been trying to work on that but I haven't been making any great leaps or bounds.

In this case I'm getting tired of sleeping on the couch and more importantly of sleeping alone. I like falling asleep with Kaidan's arms around me. I like waking up with my head on his chest. I don't enjoy waking up stiff and sore on the couch because I'm too stubborn to admit I was wrong.

I flip through a magazine but don't read any of the articles. I think it's the same one I flipped through last week.

I toss the magazine down with a sigh and look down at my feet. I'm wearing my prosthetic today—it's easier to convince the therapist that I'm making progress when I do. I should feel lucky. The prosthetic is state of the art and has full mobility. It's just not the same as having my real leg.

_What are you whining about Shepard? You're alive._ _That's more than billions can say. _I hate that voice in my head. I hate it because it's crass and it sounds like my father's voice and because everything it said was true.

I called my father just the other day. It was one of those weak moments when I had hit a particularly low point and my mother wasn't available and Kaidan and I still weren't on speaking terms. I should have known better.

"Shepard here." My father's voice had been just as gruff as I remembered.

"Dad, it's me."

There had been a long pause and I didn't doubt that he was wondering why I was calling. We didn't talk often and we weren't overly close. We shared the obligatory calls on special occasions when we had time. He had come to see me in London when I was still half drugged and confined to a hospital bed. The pat on the arm and bland "good job" was less than memorable as way of a reunion but it was a lot more than I had gotten out of him at any time prior.

"What do you need?"

I need to feel whole again. I need to feel like my old self. I need someone to tell me that it's going to be okay without me having to bare my soul to them. I know it doesn't work like that no matter how much I wish it did.

I don't tell him any of that.

"I just thought I'd call," I finally said. "I—I wanted to ask you something."

"So ask. There's no point in wasting time beating around the bush."

My courage waned. I had wanted to ask him how he got back to feeling like himself after he had been through the First Contact War. His squad had faced a no-win situation and only he and a few others had survived. He didn't talk about it and I had only heard about it when we had gone to a tribute for the fallen during my childhood. I wasn't sure how he'd react to my bringing it up now.

"When's mom supposed to be home?" I finally asked instead.

"There's no set date. Sometime next week was the last I heard. Look, kid, I have to get back to it. I'll have her call you when she gets back."

"Okay, thanks Dad. Love you. Bye."

"Yep. Bye."

The click as he disconnects is like the straw the breaks the camel's back, the back being my blind adherence to the belief I could get better on my own. It's been a long time coming. I realize just how desperate I must be to reach out to my father for someone to talk to. I'd have had better luck trying to talk to Aria T'Loak.

I can't be the old Shepard again if I don't let myself rely on someone. It doesn't make sense to me because I was always so self-contained, so self-sufficient. It doesn't make sense but I can't keep standing still. I have to dig myself out and that means I have to admit I need help.

I know it's not going to be easy but then not much has been.

Besides, it can't be any harder than defeating the Reapers, can it?


	5. Chapter 5

**[Entry 005]**

Expectations are funny things.

I'm not sure if my therapist was trying to be ironic by asking about my expectations right around my birthday. If she meant it to be then she was probably more successful than I'd care to admit because that specific day has never really meant anything to me before. Growing up on spaceships with parents on active duty left birthdays to fall by the wayside. The most memorable one I had was my eighteenth when I enlisted in the Alliance navy.

But I digress; I was talking about my therapist and her assignment. I'm supposed to think about my expectations.

She wants three different sets of them to talk about at our next appointment. Past, present, future. When she first said it I thought it would be easy but on my way out of her office the weight of the exercise hits me. I realize my expectations and whether or not I've met them have the potential to bring up some really heavy shit. I know I can handle it. I just don't know if I _want_ to. I think that's her point.

Kaidan's waiting for me outside. It's sunny and he has his face tilted up to the sky, his eyes closed against the brightness. He looks content. I find a simple pleasure in that. I like seeing him happy. It reminds me I still have a lot to be thankful for.

When I sit beside him he doesn't open his eyes but his mouth turns up at the corners and he reaches for me. I turn my hand so our fingers twine together, the action as fluid with the ease of practice. There are perks to being here and not aboard an Alliance vessel where the rules and red tape made such a simple gesture difficult. It allows us the time to form habits like this.

He asks about my session casually; the way he does when he's curious but doesn't want to feel like I have to share something I don't want to.

One day I'll stop feeling like I have to be an island unto myself and tell him I would share anything with him. One day I'll stop being such a closed off fool and actually share everything with him.

Today, though, I tell him the same thing I tell him every time he asks. It was a session.

Maybe it's something in my voice or the way I tighten my finger arounds his that makes him open his eyes as he tilts his head to look at me. He doesn't have to voice the question for me to read it in his expression. _Do you want to talk about it?_ That's what he's asking.

"We talked about expectations. Or rather she talked about expectations and asked me to think about mine," I tell him. I am working on opening up to him, I love him after all. I trust him to have my back; it is well past time to trust he'd take care of my heart just as well.

I look down at our hands resting on my thigh. I know what I should tell him. I don't know how he'll react, if he'll be angry for me not telling him sooner. I decide it doesn't matter—at least I don't think it will.

So I tell him one of my expectations. I tell him I'm expecting bad news from Hackett.

He shifts and for a moment I think he's going to pull away. I'm surprised at the relief I feel when he doesn't. It makes me wonder why I expect him to.

Another expectation, ugh. Damn I hate this therapist right now.

"What do you mean?" he asks and for once I don't hesitate before telling him what I did.

I called Hackett yesterday.

I asked him to consider putting me back into some type of active-duty role. I know he thinks I'm not ready, it hasn't been a year yet, but I'm not doing anyone any good just sitting around. It's not like I'm asking for command of the Normandy, I just want something to do.

He said he wanted me at my best. I'd done a great service to the galaxy and I had earned my re—rest. He caught himself but I know he'd been about to say retirement.

I'm thirty-four. Not young but certainly not ready to retire, no matter what I might have said before. Sure, some mornings I feel about a hundred but those days are growing fewer and farther between. I'm getting better. At least I feel like I'm getting better.

After that our conversation had quickly dwindled. He was a busy man. The relays were being rebuilt and the collaboration took a lot of his time and attention. If all went as planned soon the first would be open and before we knew it we'd be at the one year anniversary of the end of the war. He said we'd talk about it again after that was done. It was going to be a big deal and he'd need me at the head of it in my dress blues.

"I'm not putting you off, Shepard, but you took a hell of a beating down there. Don't push yourself."

Don't push yourself. Once the comm link had been severed I rolled my eyes. I'd been pushing myself my whole life, that's how I got to where I was. Okay so not all of that was good, but most of it was.

"I—I see where you're coming from and I also see Hackett's point," Kaidan says after a moment, his voice consoling and hesitant like he's choosing his words carefully. "It's amazing you survived what you did—you shouldn't be alive. I'm so grateful you are, but your injuries…" He shakes his head and I watch his face as he trails off.

I was in the hospital a lot longer than the stay I remember. Comatose and then heavily sedated. I had been out of foster close to three months. The doctor's hadn't declared me "out of the woods" for even longer. I know it was touch and go but I don't remember it. Kaidan does. I see the pain of it on his face. He thought I was dead and when he found out I wasn't there was no sense of relief in knowing that could still change at any moment. I remember the feeling from that desperate flight from Mars to the Citadel with Kaidan's life hanging by a thread. I can't imagine feeling that way for months.

He hasn't told me the whole story and I don't ask. When he's ready, he will.

We all have our wounds to heal; we all have our scars. Some we carry just a little closer to the vest than others.

We both fall silent for several minutes until I lean over to rest my head on his shoulder. I know I set high expectations for myself. We both know it. It's who I am. It's what makes me Commander Shepard. We also both know I'm not ready, that I need more time. It just kills me to sit around useless while the rest of the galaxy is working their asses of rebuilding. I just want to _do_ something. Contribute something.

It's time for me to change the subject; this afternoon is to bright and beautiful for my bitterness and reminiscing about painful things. There are things I should be grateful for, things I never expected to have. Things like sunshine on my face without worrying how long it would last before the Reapers came. Things like the man sitting beside me, the man who changed my expectations in every respect and all for the better. He'd been doing that since Eden Prime and he seems to have no intention of stopping. Expectations were meant to be lived up to, or exceeded, or broken.

And Kaidan had a way of exceeding them, starting with a day that used to mean little more to me than any other day.

Because that's the funny thing about expectations. You never know when they're going to blindside you by changing in every, single way.


	6. Chapter 6

**[Entry 006]**

I've been officially removed from the list of those missing in action.

It seems silly, right? I haven't been missing since... well... sometime in the days after that final push. Honestly, I don't really remember how many days I was technically missing for; I could look it up in the reports but it doesn't really matter now.

Brass wanted to wait to announce that I survived until after I was "out of the woods", but "out of the woods" became "until you're back on your feet" and since I don't have feet anymore—just a foot—that became now. Nine months later. It wasn't the biggest secret within the Alliance but nevertheless I found myself sitting on the couch, massaging a cramp out of my thigh and listening to the news reports air that Commander Shepard had survived.

Aren't there better things to report on? I mean the progress on the relays is outstanding. Estimates are that they'll be operational by the end of summer. Cooperation between the races stuck in the Sol system is holding; hopefully it will last once the relays are up and everyone is able to return home. Those are the things that are important; at least that's what I think. Still they keep celebrating my survival. I'm just one person. One among billions.

I flip through the channels again and then leave it on the Alliance News Network. The reporter is in London interviewing civilians on the street. I haven't been back to London yet but I want to go. James is working on the rebuild there and we communicate via email and the occasional call, the man is N7 material through and through.

It's a beautiful day outside and I've left the sliding door open to the balcony. I could go out but with all the newscasts going and pictures of me flying around someone would recognize me and I'd be mobbed before I could get away. I may be proficient with my new leg but I'm not as quick as I used to be.

The front door opens and Kaidan strides in. He's carrying a six pack under one arm and a smile on his face. It's that infectious type of smile, the kind I can't help returning. I comment on how early he is as he hands me a beer and sits down beside me.

"I was tempted to join the people dancing in the street but I'm a terrible dancer." He leans his head back against my arm the smile still playing at his lips. "Oh, wait. That's you."

He's right, so when I punch his arm for teasing me I quickly follow it up with a kiss. I don't dance very often and especially not in front of people I don't know because the truth is they could sedate me, tie me to a beam and bounce me up and down so my limbs flopped about uncontrollably and I'd probably look better than when I actually try.

The TV drew our attention back as the interviews continued. "…were never worried. Commander Shepard had our complete faith," a woman was telling the reporter. "We knew she'd save us."

I shake my head. This sentiment is one I've heard over and over again today. Don't they realize how dire the situation had been; how close I had come to failing? How could they not have worried when they looked out their windows and saw the streets filled with rubble and monsters? How could they not have believed this was the end when giant machines leveled cities with no effort?

Kaidan knows I feel this way. I can tell by the hand he lays on the back of my neck, the gentle grip keeping me anchored to the present, to the place where we had succeeded.

"They didn't see it the way we did," he tells me. "They didn't see the destruction the Reapers caused all around the galaxy first hand."

I guess I just don't get it. I was one, single person and that person didn't win this war; we all did. I couldn't have done it on my own, not by a long shot. It wasn't just me, not even just my team. It was the entire galaxy banding together over their shared losses and refusing to surrender. That's what won the war.

Somebody has found a sound clip of Miranda. It's doctored, obviously, and old. It was shot before our mission through the Omega-4 Relay. I'm not sure how they got it or when because this was a personal conversation we had on Illium but here it is for the world to hear.

"She has this fire that will make people follow her to hell itself," Miranda's voice echoed through the speakers.

I push myself to my feet and lurch towards our bedroom as fast as I can with one leg gone and my crutch forgotten. Kaidan calls after me but I ignore him as I slide into the bathroom and come to a stop facing the mirror.

What do they see?

I study myself. I see blue eyes hardened by the horrors they've seen but bright nonetheless. That brightness is thanks to my friends and family. My hair has grown in some, it's not as long as it was before but at least I'm no longer sporting the buzz cut from the hospital. There are some scars. One peeks out from under the hem of my shirt. Another runs along my hairline. I see a strong jaw thanks to my father. Full lips that Kaidan says are pouty when I want them to be. Those are from my mother.

The one thing I don't see is the fire.

I thought maybe it would be something in my eyes or in the set of my shoulders. Maybe in the arch of my back or set of my jaw. I just thought I would see it.

Kaidan appears in the mirror's reflection and I see the concern all over his face as he leans against the door jamb. Usually when I run off like that he finds me with my head in the toilet puking my guts out from pain or from taking my meds on an empty stomach. I can't tell for sure but he seems even more concerned now when I'm not.

"It's there, Shep," he tells me. It seems like he's been reading my mind a lot lately, or maybe I just let everything show on my face.

"What?" I question him even though I know what he's talking about.

"That fire. That spark about you. It's there."

I look back at myself, critical of my own countenance. "How can you tell? What do you see that I'm missing?"

He steps forward and rests his hands on my shoulders. "Think back over everything you've accomplished. All that you've done. That's where it is."

I shake my head. "That was ninety percent luck and ten percent crazy." I shake my head, maybe seventy percent luck and thirty percent crazy. "I just don't see it, Kaidan. How can you be sure? How do you know it's there?"

He squeezes my shoulders gently and leans in to kiss the top of my head. "If you don't see it in the things you've done then there's just one thing you can do."

He paused and I look up to meet his gaze in the mirror. "Well?" I prompt when he doesn't continue on right away.

"You just have to take it on faith."


	7. Chapter 7

**[Entry 007]**

I hate goodbyes.

That's a secret about the "great" Commander Shepard that not many people know. I don't even think Kaidan knows.

I know, a lot of people hate goodbyes, but this is different. It's like worry twists around my heart and a knot of anxiety takes up residence in the pit of my stomach. Every possible negative outcome plays through my mind like some slideshow of my worst nightmares. It doesn't matter whether the person is leaving for an hour or for a year. It doesn't matter if they're going to the store or on a suicide mission. It makes no difference to me.

When I was a child I couldn't hide my feelings. Or I didn't have to. Either way, I would cry and sulk. Now it's different. I'm older. I'm expected to carry myself with some semblance of dignity and I hate looking weak. I've learned to hide my feelings behind a mask of calm.

This didn't come out of nowhere. I'm up late at my desk in the living room. Kaidan's asleep in the bedroom, the door cracked open down the narrow hallway. I can just see him from where I sit. The soft glow of the alarm clock proclaims that I should have been in bed hours ago, lying next to the man who's face it's light gently illuminates.

But I can't sleep, not right now.

I'm on the eve of another goodbye though I guess technically now it's the day of said farewell. Kaidan is travelling with some of his biotic students out to the Sol Relay. He should only be gone for a week or two at best but that's if everything goes right and—well I don't want to think about anything but the mission going right. At least not until after he's left.

Saying goodbye to Kaidan is the worst. We've been through a lot and the things that could have torn us apart a million times over only made us stronger together. We faced the odds, made what peace we could and even when there was no hope we'd make it out alive fate had intervened on our behalf. I feel like we've earned our little slice of _happily ever after_. It's not perfect but it's ours. We deserve it.

When I was on the Citadel that last time I made my peace as best I could. I still don't remember everything but I do remember staring into the face of all we had done and all that was still left to do. I was sure I wasn't coming back but my death was miniscule compared to what I'd be saving. I made peace with that. I made peace with leaving my parents, who loved me but didn't need me. I made peace with leaving my friends and crew. I hoped they wouldn't wonder if there was something more they could have done.

The one thing I hadn't been able to make peace with was leaving Kaidan. It seemed wrong; too soon after we'd reunited. Too soon after we'd gotten over the hurt of my death—my first death. I didn't want to think what I'd be doing to him again.

We'd had our brief goodbye on the London streets with ash raining down upon us. I don't remember the exact words but I remember the tremor in both our voices, the heat of his lips on my mine, the grip of his hand on my waist, hesitant to let go. We didn't have time to say everything we wanted and part of me was glad we didn't have time to drag it out.

My real goodbye was waiting back on the Normandy.

Maybe that's what brought this up now. I've been going through my old entries and reports. Tucked in among my personal mission briefs and notes was the vid I had recorded not long before we assaulted the Illusive Man's base. It contained all of the things I wanted to tell Kaidan. All of the goodbyes I had never been able to articulate in person. All of the apologies I thought he was owed.

_I understood why you said what you did on Horizon but it still hurt… I missed you… I'm glad you're back… I'm sorry I wasn't able to protect you on Mars… I love you… I love you… I love you…_

I remember sitting in front of the terminal at my desk with a cup of tea. I had gone through a whole range of emotions during that recording. I chuckle as another part pops into my head. I was talking about the future I wanted for us; the future I thought I'd never have.

_I want a puppy, Kaidan. When we're all done with this I want a dog. Not a little yappy thing; I want a lab maybe or a big, old shepherd. Wouldn't that be ironic? Shepard with a shepherd. Okay, so maybe just a lab. But you better get me a puppy._

I had never given it to him. It was supposed to transmit to him in the event of my death and since I was still alive it has been hidden away all this time.

Should I give it to him now?

I glance over my shoulder down the hallway in time to watch Kaidan stir restlessly. We both sleep better together. Experience tells me he'll wake up soon if I don't join him. It's going to be a long couple of weeks.

My finger hovers over the file as I think. There's a lot more than a goodbye in it. Parts may hurt but the majority of it, I think he'd want to hear. I'd want to hear it.

A flick of my fingertip sends it to his omni-tool.

Kaidan stirs again and I hear him sit up; ask me what time it is. The clock tells me I've been sitting here longer than I planned to.

"I know you're worrying about tomorrow… about saying goodbye. Why don't you come to bed and we'll face it together in the morning," he suggests. Maybe he knows me better than I realize.

He's right. I need to push the fear away. Put the anxiety behind me. I tell him I'll come to bed in just a moment and I don't think I'm imagining his soft chuckle as he lies back down.

I've said that before but this time I actually mean it.


	8. Chapter 8

**[Entry 008]**

I think I managed to fluster my therapist today when I told her I was feeling homesick. She got a bizarre look on her face and then checked her notes repeatedly before she asked what I meant. She was obviously ruffled as she continued before I could even open my mouth to reply. She didn't mean to offend; she was just curious how I could be homesick when I'd grown up bouncing from one ship to the next. I mean in her eyes I hadn't really had a home, per se.

I don't think people who weren't raised on space ships understand how those who were can be homesick. I guess it's understandable, even if I don't quite understand it myself. They wonder how a child or anyone really, misses a place called home when they never stayed in one place long enough to make one?

Sure I didn't have a yard or a bedroom with a '_keep out!'_ sign hanging on the door. I didn't get a dog or learn how to drive a car when I turned sixteen. Instead I played in ship ducts and made secret hideaways where the adults never went. I learned how to fire a pistol and tune up the shuttles. I fell asleep not to the sound of crickets and wind, but to the creaking of bulkheads, the subtle sway when the inertia dampeners kicked in. No matter what time it was there was always activity around me. If you were still enough and listened hard enough you could always hear the muffled thud of boots on the metal decks, the sound of voices carrying through the cabin walls. I was never alone even when I was by myself.

But it's more than that.

I tell myself it isn't the physical place I miss, though maybe it is a little bit.

When she asks me to describe what home is to a kid that grew up following her parents from spaceship to spaceship my mind doesn't focus on any of the frigates I lived on during my youth. No, it immediately settles on the sleek, fast ship currently being repaired only a few miles from where I now sit. _Tell me about the Normandy_, she says and I note the spark of interest in her eyes.

There's something about the Normandy. The moment you set foot on her it's like she's alive beneath you. Terminals are constantly streaming data. There is always a report to read or messages to send. A soft chime would draw my attention to a new correspondence at my private terminal putting me in contact with people in another system. The galaxy was at my fingertips. We could go anywhere.

And it wasn't just the ship. It was the people too. There was always someone working in the shuttle bay, whether it was Cortez tuning up the Kodiak's drive core or Vega tinkering with an assault rifle. In engineering Adams would be taking scans and readings while Donnelly made some crack about climbing through the ship's ducts and how if EDI is the Normandy then… well you get the idea.

You could find Garrus in the forward battery and while he was forever calibrating the guns he never hesitated to extend an offer to meet me at the bar for a drink. Chakwas would wave through the plate glass windows as I passed by the medbay, the half-empty bottle of brandy a reminder of good times shared. Kaidan would be reading in the starboard observation or drafting reports in the crew quarters. He always had something to do but he would pause long enough to make some lame attempt at flirting, which would make us both laugh and then agree to meet later, in private, to work on his flirtation skills.

When sleep eluded me, as it often did in those last few months, I could make my way to the bridge and sit in silence as Joker worked his magic. Watching the best pilot in the Alliance fly the best ship in the fleet was something I never grew tired of and honestly Joker's humor and taste in music kept me sane. He was the one that stuck with me through it all. I would go to hell and back for Jeff. He has already done the same for me.

We talked about the "good old days" and laughed when we realized our mad dash to find Saren and stop Sovereign has become those "good old days". Days when we had fought the geth instead of allying with them, when we hadn't known what Reapers were let alone how much sacrifice it would take to stop them. We relived our crazier missions through the old mission briefs and helmet vids and argued over my refusing to tell him who really was behind the wheel of the Mako. No matter the uniform he had always been my pilot and even though we both had regrets when it came to Cerberus our temporary allegiance hadn't been without its benefits.

If you had asked me two years ago what I thought of having a Cerberus-built AI installed on the Normandy I would have told you that I wanted it gone. Now though, well I'd be lying if I said EDI was just another AI to me. She's an integral part of my crew and she's a good friend. Does that sound weird? Having an AI as a friend? It might have sounded weird to me once but not now.

Those are the things I love about the Normandy. That's home to me.

Here the apartment is so quiet, so removed from the hustle and bustle of everything. Even the detention center was livelier. Sure I was under constant guard and contained to my room for the majority of the six months but there was always something happening. I'm not saying I'd rather be in lock up but at least there I could watch the shuttles come and go. I could listen to the people passing back and forth outside my door.

Here, when I'm alone, there's nothing but the occasional creak of the building settling or the soft hum of rain on the window panes. The sounds are soothing but they're not the sounds of home.

I lean back with a sigh and realize by the look on my therapist's face that I've said too much. I've given her insight into my personal life that I had tried to keep hidden before. She's entranced by the Normandy, by my description of this famous ship, but she's not dumb. She's learned a lot about the woman sitting in front of her from what I said and some things I didn't.

I could have tried to stifle my response, to not let all my feelings out in a rush but I don't think I would have been successful. I miss the Normandy. I miss her crew.

I'm homesick.


	9. Chapter 9

**[Entry 009]**

There are bodies everywhere.

They've been discarded like trash, piled up all around like they were on the Collector ship. There's so many I can barely move without stepping on them. If I weren't in so much pain the nausea might have won out. Thank God for small mercies, right?

I take a step and fall to my knees; my hands hit the floor, slip in blood and grime and the strength goes out of me. My face smacks against the ground and I feel my lip split, the warm trickle of blood leaving the tang of iron on my tongue.

I close my eyes. Just for a moment. Just one, precious moment.

The crackle of my com jars me to alertness and when I open my eyes I realize I don't know how long I've been lying here.

"Shepard."

_Anderson._ Everything hurts. Pain is radiating from my bones, making my nerves scream. I want to reply; I want to tell him I'm alive but my throat is tight. So painfully tight.

"Shepard!"

I force myself to my hands and knees and suck in a breath. My body protests but I push past it. I came here for a reason even if it's too hard to focus on it now. Blood drips from my mouth and I watch it splash against the back of my hand. It looks black against the bruises.

_Inhale_, I tell myself. _Breathe._ I cough then groan at the pain. This is the worst I've ever felt. "A—Anderson? You up here too?"

He says something; most of it comes out garbled over the com but I understand that he's here. Somewhere. His voice is in my ear again. It gives me something to focus on. I push myself to my feet and manage not to trip over the bodies around me.

Anderson asks what I see; asks if I'm okay.

I feel like death. I feel like I just fought with the devil and lost. I don't tell him that though. I tell him I'm okay. I tell him I'll manage.

We have a job to do.

I continue on for what seems like hours; maybe it's only minutes, maybe it's days. Each step seems to take an eternity. Most of the time I walk but sometimes I crawl, my legs too exhausted and painful to carry me upright. The last climb up that long ramp is especially hard. My breath burns in my chest; my heart thunders in my ears. Several times I feel like my only choice is to give up. I just want to sleep.

_You can do this, Shepard._ That was Kaidan's voice. Where was he? I look around wildly before I realize that of course he's not here. _Get up. You can do this._

"Yes," I say aloud though no one can hear me. No one but the keepers, at least. They go about their business as if the galaxy isn't crumbling around them. They carry on like their once pristine tunnels aren't filled with bodies.

One step at a time. One foot in front of the other.

The room that materializes before me is walled in glass. Beyond I can see the glittering arms of the Citadel, closed tight against the war raging outside. Anderson is here. Someone else is here too.

"Anderson."

He's hunched over a console but at the sound of my voice he turns, his body stiff and shaking. He speaks but I can barely hear his words. He seems so far away; he sounds so far away. "Shepard—I can't—"

My mind is hazy, crowded. My thoughts are no longer so easy to grasp. There are voices, millions of voices clouding my mind, filling it up with thoughts that couldn't possibly be my own. Could they?

I came here for a reason—_we are many—_The voices crowd into my skull—_you are one_—It writhes like a living thing, pulsing and swaying—_we bring order—_I want to drown them out but I'm just one voice. One voice can't drown out millions.

_Draw your weapon, Commander, _the voices whisper.

The Illusive Man. He circles us like a varren intent on his kill. He is haggard, more machine than man anymore. I clench my jaw and steel myself. I try to find my resolve.

He speaks of control. He says we can bend their will if we simply seize the ability to do so. He makes it sound easy.

The voices swell and I close my eyes against the pain of the cacophony that is their laughter. They're amused.

"We haven't earned that right," I force out between gritted teeth. "There is power there that we can't even begin to comprehend!"

His lips curl into a sneer. "You've underestimated me, Shepard., just like I underestimated you." He gestures at nothing or maybe he sees something I don't. Maybe he hears them too. "This control is the means to our continued existence, Shepard. It is the only way."

I am laughing then and coughing and bleeding. Everything has come to this. "You are blind. If we enslave them eventually they will find a way to overthrow us. Look at what happened with the geth! We would control them and one day we would grow complacent. Maybe not right away. Maybe not for years, or centuries even. But eventually we would relax our guard for a second and that would be all they would need. You think this is bad? Their revenge for enslaving them would be magnitudes worse. Humanity would be wiped from existence. The galaxy might fare no better."

He was standing at my shoulder, his voice in my ear. "I refuse to believe that. We will take precautions. We will never let that happen."

I shake my head, "How can you be certain? And to what end do we take control of the Reapers? To lift humanity to the apex? To take control of everything and everyone? Every species? Every race? We would be no better than the Reapers then. We would be no less hated."

"Humanity doesn't need to be loved, just respected. There is no harm in a little fear."

It is then that I see it. He is becoming one of them. He is already under their power. He might cling to a few fraying threads of control but they are winning.

"The power they wield could be ours, Shepard. We only need to take it." He nudges my pistol and suddenly it is pointed at Anderson. Suddenly I am facing down the man I respect more than my own father and I can't drop my arm.

The voices swell and mixed among them I hear him. The Illusive Man. I was wrong. He isn't becoming one of them; he already is one of them. His black tendrils of control are melding in among the others. He is indoctrinated and he doesn't even know it.

But he does know he has some power left. Some power over me.

"Look at what they can do!"

My finger is squeezing the trigger. I can't stop it. I can't move.

My pistol fires.

**O~o~O**

_Anderson!_

I jerk awake. Sweat is soaking through my shirt and my whole body is aching. It's the third night this week that I've startled from sleep with the echo of that shot sounding in my head.

The doctors said that my memories might start to return.

I had been glad to hear that. I wanted them back. There were gaps that I'd rather have filled, blanks I'd rather not exist. At least that's what I told myself before these dreams started. Now? Now I think I'd rather they just stay gone.

I sit up, thankful for once that my tossing and turning has sent Kaidan over to the other side of the bed. He's sound asleep with his face buried in his pillow. I never understand how he can sleep like that without suffocating himself. But I'm glad he's still out cold. I don't need to burden him with this. I don't want to tell him I might have been the one to kill our friend.

Anderson.

Was this a memory or my mind playing tricks on me? Did I kill him? I pray it isn't true. I pray even though prayer had never worked for me before.

This dream is always clouded, always fuzzy. It always leaves me wondering if those hazy, black tendrils clouding my mind are a figment of my overworked subconscious or something far more sinister.

The implications… No. I refuse to believe that I… I… Shit.


	10. Chapter 10

**[Entry 010]**

Being back in space should have been a relief. It should have been simple.

When the Alliance scheduled another trip out to the Sol Relay for Kaidan and his biotic squad I managed to weasel my way into a spot on the transport out there. My therapist signed off on the trip with the assurance that I would only miss one, maybe two, appointments. My doctors signed off on it because she did. By all accounts it should have been a good thing.

Somewhere in my delusion I thought being back in space was the detail that I missed. I thought when I was back everything else would just fall into place. Being on any ship in any capacity would be a remedy.

As it turns out, I was wrong.

That might be because the only thing I can really do is sit on the observation deck and look out the windows. I'm not part of the crew so there's no need for me anywhere but the passenger deck. I'm not a member of the biotic squad so there's no need for me to join their meetings and training sessions.

_I think you still expect life to just go back to the way it was one day_, the therapist had told me at our last session. I still want to believe she's wrong even though my gut tells me she's probably right.

I look over at Kaidan who's asleep beside me. I long to touch him, to run my fingers through his hair or kiss his shoulder but I don't want to wake him. He went to bed upset about something he refused to speak of. Hopefully he'll find some comfort in sleep.

I had been sitting at the tiny little desk in our quarters when he'd stormed in after being caught up in meetings and training all day. He'd been tense; I could tell by the clench of his jaw and the way his fingers had lingered at his temples even after he realized I noticed. It's a look I know too well; it's a look that tells me he's upset and has a migraine coming on.

I had asked him what was wrong but he'd brushed me off. He didn't want to talk about it. He just wanted some time by himself. I pushed him a bit. I had told him he could tell me anything.

It had sounded silly when I said it because I knew he knew that but I felt like I needed to say it anyway.

I shouldn't have been surprised when he snapped back that it was nothing, even though I wished he'd just talk to me. I had let it go because we didn't need a fight, especially not here where the walls are thin and our voices carry to those staying in the adjoining quarters.

He had retreated to the shower and I had gone to the mess hall. Maybe I should have stayed and made him talk to me; it's what my mother would have done. She had a way of latching onto a topic and picking at it until the other person gave in or walked away. I didn't share that same style.

It was in the mess hall that I figured it out. Gagarin Station. There had been some command from the Alliance and we had been rerouted. What better place for a squad of biotics to be based out of then the old biotic research station.

I could have screamed I was so frustrated. Instead I had settled for a tumbler full of whisky.

Once I could have called Alliance Brass and had a title and two legs to stand on when I fumed at them for making such a stupid decision. Now, even though I hadn't been discharged, I didn't have either of those things. I had called in many favors to just get on this trip and it left me in no place to say anything at all.

I had grumbled over the fact and poured myself another glass.

When I got back to our quarters Kaidan had been asleep or at least pretending to be. I thought about waking him but decided it wouldn't do either of us any favors. _Don't push him, Shep_, I told myself. _Give him a little time._

Gagarin Station, once called Jump Zero, held a lot of old, painful memories for Kaidan. How could it not? He had told me about brain camp on a few occasions, had let me comfort him after he told me about Vyrnnus and Rahna. He'd been a kid back then, just a fresh faced teen who'd never fought anyone or thought about being a soldier. Killing for the first time was something you never forgot and for Kaidan it was made worse by the fact that in the eyes of the girl he was protecting he had become the very tormentor that had terrified her in the first place.

It had been an accident but accidents often weigh heavy on troubled hearts.

Kaidan stirs and rolls towards me. My breath catches in my throat as he drapes his arm over my thighs I let it out slowly when he seems to drift off to sleep again. "I love you, Shepard," he murmurs.

"I love you too," I whisper letting my fingers brush against his hair. "We'll get through this."

It's been that way from the very beginning. Maybe I didn't know it what that feeling was when we ran that first mission on Eden Prime. Maybe I didn't even know for sure when we made our first, unpracticed attempts at flirting on the original Normandy. I figured it out pretty quickly after that.

I guess things don't go back to the way they were before, especially not after something as monumental as the Reaper War. Maybe nothing else will find a place in the puzzle that is my life now but I can be certain that one thing will always fit. I will always love Kaidan and Kaidan will always love me. We'll always have each other's six. Jump Zero might lie ahead but we'll get through it. We've survived worse.

So maybe some things don't need to fall back into place because they never changed to begin with.


	11. Chapter 11

**[Entry 011]**

_She'll get what's coming to her. Hero or not, Shepard has the blood of millions on her hands._

Enough time has passed that people have begun to come out of the woodwork. They've had time to analyze each response, scrutinize my every action, investigate every rumor. They are familiarizing themselves with what went on "behind the scenes". They are weighing the good deeds, the times Commander Shepard beat impossible odds, and seeing if they measure up against everything lost.

Most people still believe I did everything I could but there are some who don't.

My therapist says that's always the case. She says I could have done everything right and still people would find something to complain about. I know she's right. I know she's right even as my brain tells me she said "could have done" instead of "did". It makes me wonder how she saw the war, how she still sees it. It makes me wonder what her story is.

But we don't meet to talk about her. We meet to talk about me.

It's mainly the Batarians. They're calling for justice for the Arahok system. They want me to take responsibility for all the lives lost when I destroyed the Alpha Relay. They believe those Batarians would still be alive if it weren't for my actions that day. The truth is that we'd probably all be dead by now if I hadn't.

That fact doesn't placate their anger and it doesn't help me sleep at night.

They don't want to believe that and they don't want to believe that if I'd had the chance to save those souls lost that I would have. They think that my history has colored my opinions of their race.

_We have rescinded the war crimes charges against Madelyne Shepard but she must still answer for what she's done._

The council rebuffed the Batarians demands for me to be held in their brig until the relays opened and they could bring me to trial in their own system, on their own planet. That would never happen. The Alliance would never hand me over and the Batarians wouldn't press it any further. They may be a crass and disliked race but they were not stupid. Too many races stood behind me; too many would take arms against them if they went after me. They had been decimated but they could rebuild, but only if they let this go.

They did, begrudgingly.

That should have been the end of it. The Batarians should have returned to their ships on the edge of the Sol System and waited for the relays to open. Well, they did but they left a current of unease in their wake. Their very public outcry woke similar doubts within every race. People wanted to know why Shepard had let it get as far as it did. Why she had waited to act when families were being ripped apart across the galaxy.

The answers given by the leaders placated most but only served to enrage some. Excuses. Lies. Conspiracies. That was what they saw.

When I look in the mirror I see someone who is broken. I see a leader that tried so hard for so long that she lost a part of herself she's worried she'll never get back. I see a woman that wants to be out helping rebuild from the devastation that surrounds everyone but can't due to her new limitations. I see a soldier thankful to be alive, thankful anyone is alive.

The fanatics don't see that because it's a private struggle. They wouldn't see it even if it weren't.

They see a leader that fled Earth when the Reapers invaded. They see a woman that is letting others do the heavy lifting now that the battle has been won. They see a soldier who fought other races' battles before fighting her own.

My therapist told me that the Alliance is considering putting an extra security detail on me in light of the recent surge in threats. They had asked for her opinion. She told me she agreed with them.

I thought it was a waste of manpower. Those soldiers could be assigned any number of more important duties. I've been careful. I don't even live in a place with my name on the lease. The apartment was Kaidan's. We've both been careful, the Alliance has been beyond secretive; I was sure there was nothing to worry about.

I should have known better.

I'm laughing now because it hurts too much to cry. My prosthetic is twisted under me; what's left of my leg is screaming. Blood is blossoming on my shirt, staining the blue Alliance tee from where the Polonium round caught me in my shoulder. I should be thankful I still have my reflexes or the round would have struck my heart.

I hear the distant wail of sirens. I hear shouting and the thud of boots on the stairs. Help is coming.

I will be fine. I've survived worse. My attacker won't be so lucky.

He lies a few feet away, blood pulsing from the holes in his chest. I had managed to wrestle the gun away from him and shoot him twice as he had lunged at me again. He was no lightweight but he also hadn't survived years of N7 training. He hadn't survived the battles I had. No, he had been over eager and enraged. Those weren't things to bring to a fight or an assassination.

He turns his head to stare at me as the life seeps out of him. His blue eyes are hauntingly cold and full of hatred.

There must have been something broken in him by this war. He is a reminder that we aren't done. Sure, the Reapers are gone but the fighting isn't finished. Not by a long shot. There is still a lot left to heal, a lot of hurt and anger and pain left to mend.

He tells me this isn't over. He assures me that this doesn't end with his failed attempt even as he gasps and chokes a little while blood colors the corner of his mouth.

I'm nodding before I realize it. He's not telling me anything I don't already know. I don't hate him but I haven't come this far to lay down my life to the fanatics who will never feel I have sacrificed enough.

"Karma's…a bitch…Commander Shepard," he snarls.

I feel something stir in me. Something familiar. Something that had been missing for far too long. It's not this new, broken Shepard that answers him but the old me. Madelyne Shepard of the Alliance Navy. Commander of the SSV Normandy.

"Yes, it is," I agree and my lips pull back in a snarl all my own. "But then so are Polonium rounds."


	12. Chapter 12

Have you ever noticed how there are lines everywhere?

There are lines you can see. Lines at the supermarket or at the store kiosks. Lines to get on the shuttles or lines of guards protecting me from the next assassination attempt. Those are the lines that are easy to see. Others are not so apparent, and those are the ones you really have to watch out for. Those are the ones that'll trip you up the most. And I should know; I'm an expert when it comes to lines.

It's funny how an assassination attempt can spur things into high gear. The three days I had spent in the hospital had seen to many changes I had no say in. The apartment was abandoned in favor of a new, hopefully more secure residence. An in-depth investigation had been launched into the would-be killer and how he'd found out where I lived and the Admirals had convened to discuss my future with the Alliance.

When Kaidan showed up in his dress blues to liberate me from the hospital I knew something was up. When he handed me a garment bag with my own inside I felt my stomach clench in anticipation and nervousness.

_Hope for the best, expect the worst._ My mother used to tell me that.

I hoped that they had reconsidered wanting me to retire. I hoped that they had seen I was able to handle myself and were going to let me go back to work.

I should have listened to my mother. I should have expected the worst. I should have seen it on her face the second I walked through the door.

The Admirals knew I was a hero, they reiterated that to me even as they laid out their plan to keep me out of work. In order to keep the peace I was being kept on leave for the foreseeable future. There were just too many missteps. Fraternization. Assault. Openly associating with a known enemy. Slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Batarians. Those were just some of the choice few.

There were too many times I had crossed the line.

Unless… They asked for further insight into each decision. Had my diversified crew played any part in my choices? Had my loyalty to them and my need to keep them on board dictated my actions? Perhaps it wasn't me so much as the aliens on board my ship.

They weren't aliens to me. They were friends.

There's something to be gained by being alone, away from everything and everyone. It's always been easy for me to find comfort in my own presence, though in the past few years I've gotten used to being part of a team. I've learned to rely on people—or at least try. Once, a lifetime ago, I was a one-woman act. I was the one that had my back. **I** survived the Blitz. **I** survived Rio. It's not like that anymore.

Depending on people gives you strength, sure. It builds you up higher than you think you could have gone on your own. It keeps you strong. It gives you something to fight for. It's a powerful thing, camaraderie, friendship, love. But maybe the reason we think we get built up higher than we could by ourselves is because no one ever tried scaling the summit on their own. What if someone did try? What if they weren't afraid to go it alone?

There are a lot of what-ifs now.

What if I hadn't died when the first Normandy was attacked? What if I'd had two years to prepare for the Reapers? What if I hadn't destroyed the Alpha Relay, if I had chosen to warn the Batarians instead of calling the Normandy for a pick-up? What if the Alliance chose to stand behind me in the midst of all the accusations being thrown my way without blaming the aliens on my crew?

What happens if I stop wondering about things I can't change?

I never asked to be a hero. It was never my goal to get famous saving the galaxy. I had joined the Alliance to follow in my parent's footsteps. I had grown up on tales of daring rescues and tight squeezes. I wanted to be in those stories. I wanted to be on the front lines. Not for fame and glory but because it sounded exciting and intense, and I wanted to be like my parents.

So I did enlist; I did become a soldier, and I became a bigger part of those stories than I'd ever dreamed of; perhaps more than I'd ever wanted to be. I've lived to serve for the past sixteen years. I thought I'd have a lot more ahead of me. The Admirals don't want to make it sound final but I can read between the lines. They can't openly support a soldier who has made the choices I have.

That's why they were hoping I would say the one thing I couldn't.

It wasn't hard to see the disappointment on their faces when I told them in no uncertain terms that the choices I had made were wholly my own. They had no one but me to blame for the lines I had crossed.

I knew what my admission meant. I saw it in the little shake of Admiral Hackett's head, the regret on my mother's face, the collective sigh that went up from all of them. I would never be more than what I had been. There would be no following my mother's footsteps up the chain of command. My choices, the lines I crossed and the lines I refused to cross had cast my fate in stone.

_Never doubt that the choices you made saved us all. _

I didn't doubt it. Those choices had kept me up more nights than they would ever know.

I was doing my duty, and in doing it I found that the black and white lines the Alliance had drawn were more grey than anything else. They told me not to worry, that they would revisit this as soon as everything died down.

_If_ everything died down.

I wasn't holding my breath.


	13. Chapter 13

**[Entry 013]**

It might be hard to see from an outsider's perspective but even through all the shit that's happened to me I'm still a firm believer that good things can come from the worst of circumstances. Now, that's certainly not to say that something good comes of everything bad, but out of some things it does and usually it's discovered in the most unlikely place imaginable. That doesn't mean I always see the good right away.

As you can probably guess I didn't take my meeting with the Admiral's Board particularly well. I held it together long enough to limp off base but after that my state of mind quickly deteriorated. It was the first time I had been drunk in a long time. I mean really shit-faced. I raged at Kaidan, who didn't deserve it but took it anyway. I raged at the Reapers who couldn't hear me because they were dead—and wouldn't care even if they weren't. I screamed in frustration and anger and what I wouldn't admit was heartbreak that those I had served for so long would turn their back on me because I had made the hard choices in order to save us all.

It was not my best night. Nor was it followed by my best morning.

Kaidan had left for work long before I managed to drag myself out of bed in order to choke down a pain pill, which came right back up. My cybernetic liver still worked as well as it always had, which could only mean I'd drank a lot. Not the best way to handle bad news, nor the most stable. My therapist would have a lot to say about this, of that I was certain.

I knew I should have been ashamed of myself but as I laid there on the bathroom floor I just couldn't bring myself to care.

That ambivalence lasted until roughly mid-afternoon when I had gone for two hours without puking and had managed to keep down some crackers and ginger ale. The terminal in our new office chimed, indicating someone was on the line and I scrambled to get it, hoping it was Kaidan. Apologies were in order and I needed to start making them.

It wasn't Kaidan. It was my father.

For a minute I was too stunned to say anything. I had talked to my father all of two times since London. Once when he'd visited me in the hospital at my mother's insistence, and second, when in a moment of weakness I'd called him for advice and then chickened out before I could ask him. There was no bad blood between us but we had grown apart long before I had enlisted with the Alliance.

"So, do you want to come?" he asked, his voice taking on that gruff undertone it got when he had to repeat himself.

"I'm sorry, dad," I had said. "Where are you going?"

I had expected his usual huff into the receiver, the one that made obvious just how irritated he was without him having to put it into words. It never came.

"I rented a cabin up north and I'm heading out for the weekend. I was just wondering if you had the time and wanted to come."

That's how I ended up puttering down an old logging road in the ancient pick-up my father kept specifically for this purpose. He had one hand on the wheel and the other propped up on the windowsill, the cool air rushing in to tell us we had finally escaped the monotony of the city.

There's something I love about the forest. It's quiet and not quiet all at the same time. That probably sounds crazy but for someone brought up in the overwhelming emptiness of space it's not hard to imagine or to hear. In a forest you could be the only person for miles and life would still be erupting around you. Birds were singing. The wind was rustling through the trees. Life carried on, just like it always had, even when everything was different.

We were well out of the city by the time either one of us broke the silence. I notice the sideways looks he has been giving me so his statement shouldn't be surprising. Maybe it is more the fact that he says anything at all. "You look like shit, kid."

I tilt my head back so I can look over at him without any extra jostling of my still throbbing head. If it wouldn't have hurt I might have laughed. "Yeah, I had a rough night," I tell him.

He nods. I lean my head against the window and we finish the drive in silence.

The one thing my father loves as much as tinkering with old machines is fly fishing. When his stint as an Alliance Engineer ended he had retired back to Earth where the old scars from his service years could be eased by hours in his workshop or knee deep in a river. It brought him peace and I would never begrudge him that.

When he returns from the river as the sun's sinking behind the trees I'm curled up in a lawn chair by the fire pit watching the flames dance around the hot dogs I had skewered and set to roast.

"Still lacking the domestic touch?" He pulls the hotdogs out to show the charred sides. There was humor in his voice; it's something I haven't heard in a long time.

"I think it's the one thing that will never change," I reply dryly. I lean forward to pull the ruined ones from the spits and spear new ones.

Being at the head of the war effort hadn't left extra time for many things and certainly not for improving my very limited cooking abilities. For the last year of active service my meals had mainly consisted of ration bars and hot coffee. Not the best food, but it was quick and that's what I needed when there weren't enough hours in the day to begin with.

Now I suppose I could learn if I wanted to. I certainly have the time.

We sit in silence as he tends the fire. It's not uncomfortable; it seems like it has always been this way between us. Silence is familiar.

That's why it startles me when he looks me straight in the eye and tells me I did a good job.

"No," he stops himself, amends his statement. "You pulled off an _impossible_ job."

Impossible jobs are all fine and dandy except that they aren't. When you face insurmountable odds you'll do anything to survive, anything to beat them. You make choices that you might not make otherwise or that your superiors may not have condoned in peace time. In the heat of war it's easy to tell a soldier you trust their judgment but once it's all over there are always decisions that have to be reconciled, consequences that have to be paid.

I tell my father that because while I'm past yelling I still need to get it off my chest.

My father doesn't meet me with the stony silence that I've come to expect. He tells me a story I've never heard before; one I'd been aware of but never asked about. The kind of story so deeply personal that you can't know the person without knowing of it, without seeing it etched in haunted looks when something brought the memories flooding back.

He tells me of his last mission during the First Contact War. He had been the senior engineer on his squad; they had been together so long they joked they were all seniors. The way he speaks of them is how I speak of my crew. It's how I remember Ash and all the other friends I lost to this war.

Their commander was young, by the book and new to their team. He called the shots exactly as the Alliance dictated in the manuals they handed out your first week in basic. He left no room for adaptations to the situation. He refused to bend the rules to gain a safer approach. By the end of the day only my father, his commander and one other man were alive. The rest had been wiped out by Turian forces.

As I listen to his story it begins to dawn on me why he was so distant, why he found it hard to connect.

Losing people haunts you. It's an inevitability of war. It's bound to happen.

It's a thousand times worse when the people closest to you are those taken. Losing friends can eat you from within what with all of the doubts and what-ifs. It can devour you before you even know it's there. That pain can make you angry and scared. It can make you distant and unwilling to grow close to anyone for fear of being hurt like that again.

It can make a child realize why her father never seemed to care.

It doesn't excuse the distance. It doesn't ease the years of wondering what she could do to make her father proud, but it does make it easier to forgive because both have been there, father to daughter, soldier to soldier. It's a consequence of the battles they fought and the ones they still face.

"The Alliance likes to wrap things up in a neat little bow and tell you everything you could possibly need to handle a situation is in there, but that's just not the case. We know it and they know it too. And when you have to use other tools and make other choices it gets in the way of that picture they imagine and no matter what you've accomplished it just doesn't fit. And it's not that they don't accept that you made the right call or got the right results…"I watch his face as he trails off. I see all of the frustration and pain on his face. I recognize it from when I look in the mirror.

Finally he looks up. He takes in the circles under my eyes, the way I hold my arm close to my body because it still aches, the abrupt end to my right leg and the prosthetic propped against my chair. I know he's taking inventory of the broken person his daughter has become. I'm not the same bright-eyed girl we both remember from a lifetime ago.

"You've sacrificed more than you should have, more than the Alliance has thanked you for. They might never give you the recognition you deserve but I want you to know I'm proud of you, kid. Very proud."

I feel a smile tug at my lips and I blame the fire for the burning in my eyes.

Things don't right themselves overnight. Years of empty words and abrupt visits aren't just forgotten but he's trying—we both are. It's a start and we both know it.

When he offers me a beer I reel back with a groan. "I don't think I ever want to drink again," I moan.

He chuckles because he's said the same thing; he's told the same lie.

"Good, you're too young to be drinking anyway," he says. "Just because you saved the galaxy doesn't mean you get to drink your father's beer." His voice is gruff but still teasing and I catch the beginning of a smile when he looks over at me.

See? What did I tell you? Good things can come from the most unlikely places.


	14. Chapter 14

**[Entry 014]**

The relays are open again.

Well, I should say the Sol Relay is open again. The fleets are returning to their home systems where they will continue to repair the others. There are celebrations; all the major news channels are covering it. People aren't dancing in the streets, at least not here on Earth. I'm sure on other worlds they're rejoicing to hear that their kin are coming home. Surely there they're dancing and crying happy tears. I would be.

No. I am. I'm happy they're able to go home now. Not because I want them gone—well not _all_ of them—but because I want them to be able to see their home worlds again, to see their families again. We all fought this war; we all deserve to enjoy the peace we sacrificed and bled for.

It's bittersweet watching the frigates and dreadnoughts disappear one by one on the live feed the Alliance News Network has running. There go the Turians and Garrus along with them. And there, the Quarians with their youngest Admiral at the helm. Wrex had been first in line with his Krogan fleet. They are no doubt eager to get back and jumpstart the Krogan race.

I shake my head and take a long pull of beer.

Everyone's off doing something. Everyone but me.

I'm beginning to accept that. I've no one to command but myself now and with my wounds mostly healed it's time I start finding something to do with all this free time I have. Sitting on the couch, drinking beer can't become a daily habit…can't continue to be a daily habit.

I may only be a marine on paper but I'm still a Spectre. With the relays open again there are possibilities to consider.

The Alliance had Kaidan out at the relay for the reopening. A lot of our friends are making the jump, either returning home or going to help repair the remaining relays. Even Chakwas is stationed off-world.

There's a knock on the door and instead of getting up to get it I just yell for whoever it is to come in. Safe? No. Do I care at the moment? Double no. My prosthetic is off and I don't want to hop over to the door when whoever it is can just let themselves in.

Jeff gives me crap as he opens the door, muttering something about failed assassination attempts and an utter lack of self-preservation. I hold up my pistol as I toss him a smile over my shoulder.

He doesn't look surprised.

When Jeff first started coming over on a regular basis I thought maybe Kaidan had asked him to check up on me while he was off world. It wasn't that Jeff and I weren't close or that we hadn't stayed in touch it was just that I figured he'd be best put to use in the cockpit of another Alliance ship while the Normandy was repaired and retrofitted.

He shrugs when I mention it as he puts the six-pack he brought in the fridge. He tells me he'd rather be here, close to the Normandy and EDI. He looks at me over the bar. "Plus, I've gotten used to being your pilot."

I tell him he's getting soft because it seems too pathetic to say I've gotten spoiled having him as my pilot. We both know I already take his friendship and his skills for granted. If I ever have command of a ship again it will be a big adjustment working with a different pilot. Jeff knows my habits and my command style as well as I do. Sometimes I think he knows them _better_ than I do.

He offers me one of the bottles he's holding and I smile as I realize it's strawberry soda, not beer. The empty bottles haven't been lost on him when he visits and in typical Joker fashion he knows just what to do. The soda brings me back to a time when I smuggled a six pack on board and we sat in the cockpit of the Normandy drinking and laughing while the rest of the crew was on shore leave.

From the look in his eye he is remembering that time too.

"I guess nothing really changes," he says with a grin that's almost a smirk.

We clink our bottles together even though we both know that's not exactly true. Some things don't change; we've been in the business long enough to know that.


	15. Chapter 15

**[Entry 015]**

I hate not being able to sleep.

When I was back on the Normandy sleepless nights were a product of too little time. I could have slept if I'd have had a moment to close my eyes. It meant that sometimes I fell asleep in odd places. It had been a running joke on the Normandy. Where would someone find Commander Shepard asleep next? The CIC? The shuttle bay? The elevator? They had all been checked off my list.

Here in Vancouver though—now that I have the time to sleep—I can't. I go to bed late; I wake up early. If I sleep for a few hours each night I feel lucky.

I hadn't felt like it was because there was too much clouding my mind…at least not until tonight.

Now I'm watching Kaidan sleep and letting my thoughts tangle over each other in their mad rush to make sense. I find myself wondering if I'm ready to strap on my armor again. The instincts are there, they always will be; that's not what concerns me. I just don't know if I'm physically capable. Not like I was.

The private line we have in our makeshift office doesn't ring all that often so it surprised me when it chimed as I sat down to go over some datapads this afternoon. Of all the people I had been expecting to be on the other end of the line Aria T'Loak had not been one of them. I guess I had assumed she was dead. I mean, I knew she was hard to kill but she had been on the Citadel. I can't imagine many escaped that death trap no matter how skilled they were.

She had been lucky; she'd left the place the week before the end. The power struggle on Omega had reached a head and luckily she had taken advantage of an unstable situation. It had kept her alive and gotten her station back under her control.

I'm not sure how she found me. I'm not even sure I want to _know_ how she found me. She has a deep pool of resources; let's just leave it at that

Had I told him Kaidan would say I'm not ready and the rational part of my brain, the part telling me that I'm not one hundred percent yet, would agree. The other part would use those old lines from the pep talks I had both received and given over the years to try to sway me. It would tell me I didn't know that for sure, not until I tried.

And that's exactly what Aria had told me.

She had taken back Omega in the week after the end of the war. Cerberus had been in disarray along with the rest of the galaxy and she had used that chaos to reclaim what was hers. The station was a little worse for wear, or it had been. I have no doubt Aria turned the place around in no time.

Now she had some secret agenda, a mission she needed 'the best of the best' to pull off. I'm flattered that she thinks of me as the best of the best, but the last time she saw me I had all my limbs, a position in the Alliance military and a big ship with a full crew to back me up.

Only ten minutes before I hadn't even known she had survived the war, let alone that Omega had, yet somehow I found myself explaining to her that I was on Earth and still not back to my old self, to the person she remembered.

I had to hold back a laugh when I pictured what Aria's reaction might be when she sees me again. Maybe I should just send her a picture; she'd tell me not to worry about it. No place for amputees on T'Loak's team.

She didn't seem to care.

_What's that phrase you humans like? Like riding a bike. That's what it's like, Shepard,_ she had told me. _I could use your help and really, you owe me._

I don't remember that being part of our deal but then I don't remember some things that I probably should. I might have to ask EDI.

I debate about waking Kaidan up. He always gives good advice and I trust him to tell me the truth, even when it's hard. I decide to let him sleep. He's been working hard and this decision doesn't need to be made instantly. I should sleep on it; I should let the idea sink in. The problem with that plan is I'm not sleeping and that only leaves me time to overthink things.

I sigh and twist my fingers in the comforter as sleep continues to elude me.

Am I ready?


	16. Chapter 16

**[Entry 016]**

It was a typical day in the detention center. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Breakfast had been brought to me and I was alone until 1300 when Vega would take pity on me and let me have lunch in the mess hall. It had become our routine over the past six months.

It was 1115 when the door behind me hissed open drawing my attention from the boy playing on one of the nearby rooftops to the arrival of Lieutenant Vega. He saluted me, as usual, and just like usual I reminded him I no longer carried the rank requiring that sign of respect. He brushed it off with his usual nonchalance and motioned for me to follow him.

It was then that I noticed the undercurrent of fear humming through the corridors. People moved with a certain urgency that they had lacked yesterday. There were whispers, calls saying _Take the kids out of school. I'll be home as soon as I can. Lock the doors. I love you._ I didn't tell them that doors wouldn't help, that nothing would help. Let them keep their hope as long as they could. I had never wanted to be right about this, but it seemed I was going to be all the same. I felt fear curl in my stomach. Something was happening and I had a sinking feeling I knew what.

Then Anderson was there, his presence confirming what I already knew—what we both already knew.

The Reapers were coming.

I had seen this coming for years now and I still couldn't believe what I was seeing as the first broadcasts from the UK showed Reapers descending on London. That wisp of fear that had settled in the curl of my stomach exploded into a gripping claw that stole my breath away.

Asking why they didn't listen to me wouldn't help now. It wouldn't turn the Reapers back towards dark space. It wouldn't erase the terror on the faces of those around me as they watched the first destroyed descend on the city sprawled before them. They had reached Vancouver.

_We're not ready, _I told myself right before the world exploded around me.

**O~o~O**

I can still close my eyes and see it all, like I'm reliving that day.

_The airspace over Vancouver is filled with shuttles evacuating as many citizens as they can. The red lasers of the Reaper destroyers blow far too many from the sky as I watch on helplessly. Buildings crumble and I can hear screaming from the streets below. These people had no warning._

_The acrid smoke stings my nose and the explosions are deafening. I watch civilians crowd the shuttles only to be blown apart upon take off. Soldiers try to defend them but what can you do when your opponent is taller than a skyscraper? How do you fight that?_

We had found a way. Somehow. We destroyed the Reapers and now we're faced with the ruin they left behind. We must focus on everything still left before us.

The war isn't over. Yeah, the fighting is finished but there is a lot to be done. It's made even more obvious here, where I was standing the day the Reapers invaded.

I don't know why I came back here.

Maybe I came to remember even though lately I've been wishing I could just forget. I wish I could forget the terror in everyone's faces when the first destroyers descended upon the Vancouver skyline. I wish I could forget the explosions, and the smell of burning flesh, and the sound of the Reapers. Their metallic roar haunts me still.

That sound still startles me, more frequently than it probably should. I might hear it in the hum of a drive core or a news broadcast about the war. Sometimes I hear it when it's completely silent, when I'm lying next to Kaidan in our bed and I'm just drifting off to sleep. That's the worst. I leap to defend Kaidan…from my imagination. From nothing.

It's humbling.

Vancouver wasn't hit as hard as London was but there's still rubble in the streets; metal skeletons of dead ships and Reapers litter the city and harbor. Buildings that don't lie in ruin have been used as makeshift shelters, and hospitals, and schools. Power has been restored to all but the worst-hit areas where the near constant hum of generators muffles the booms and explosions of teams clearing the debris.

If I've learned one thing time and again it's that wars don't end when the battles are over. We have soldiers to bring home in boxes. We have grieving families to comfort, if there's any comfort to be had. We have homes to rebuild, rubble to clear. Life doesn't just go back to way it was before but we find a way to press on because that's the only thing we can do.

Sheila, my therapist, tells me I'm making progress too. _It's slow going, Shepard_, she tells me._ But you're getting there. Don't be so hard on yourself._

And I know she's right. Progress isn't instantaneous. Serving in the Alliance has taught me that; I don't know why I seem to have forgotten. I think maybe it's because I wish I could look in the mirror and not have to strain to see the same thing I see everywhere else. All I have to do is look out the window or turn on a news broadcast. Progress is slow out there, but it's steady.

I scrub my face and am startled when my hands come away wet. Tears are sliding down my cheeks. Again.

_You'll have highs and lows_, Sheila has reminded me in every session. _It's normal_.

I guess this is another low. I sure hope it's not a high.

I'm not sure I like this new "normal".


	17. Chapter 17

Questions. Always more questions.

How am I feeling? What was I thinking when the Citadel crumbled around me? Am I going to finish my steak sandwich?

Admittedly, that last one doesn't bother me in the slightest because there's only one person who asks me that and I don't feel like I get enough time with him as it is. He's the only person who knows the "great Commander Shepard" well enough to steal the food off of her plate and not feel even a little bit sorry about it.

The others though, those are harder.

My therapist starts every session by asking how I feel. The first six months I answered the same way every time. _Fine. I feel fine_. I don't know if it's trust or me just getting bored with feeding her the same line every time but now I tell her how I'm feeling...for the most part.

She'll nod and tilt her head to the side as she writes in that frustratingly thick notebook of hers, then follow up my answer with yet another question. Like I said, there's always another.

It's not really those questions that bother me. I hate talking about myself, but I can. I can tell you what I had for breakfast, how I feel when I see the vids of the Reapers falling still in the streets of Earth's cities. I can tell you I smile when I see the soldiers cheering in the streets. When civilians laugh and dance amidst the ashes because the war is won.

That's what I can tell people. The now. The present.

I can't tell them how I felt when I stood atop the Citadel and watched the fleets of the galaxy go up against might of the Reapers. I can't tell them how it felt to look down and watch Earth burn.

I can't tell them because I can't remember what I felt.

There are snippets, brief glimpses, but the details from my time up there, the key moments that I had always relied on to make decisions, are hard to see and even harder to grasp. Maybe that's a good thing, and maybe it's not. Other memories have returned and these may yet do the same. It remains a waiting game.

Kaidan comes in the door. His hair is tousled and his fatigues askew.

It speaks to the soldier in me that the look reminds me more of late nights onboard a ship during wartime, when you have barely enough time to eat let alone change your clothes, than someone returning home from a one night stand. Not that I would ever suspect that of Kaidan. Though if life had taught me anything it was that anything could happen.

I'm ashamed that the train of thought even reared its ugly head. I owe Kaidan more than that.

"What's with the disheveled look, Major?" I ask, half teasing. "You haven't been stepping out on me, have you?"

He looks down at his clothes and offers me a smile, lopsided and sheepish. The reason, he tells me, is because Jack had been teaching her kids how to use their biotics to throw today and she had told them the first person to catch Major Alenko off guard and successfully throw him would get a tattoo on her.

"So I take it someone earned their ink?"

"It wasn't one of my finer moments," he admits, stepping closer so I can tweak his wrinkled shirt between my fingertips.

He's standing between my knees, leaning down just enough that I can stretch up and barely brush my mouth against his. He could have asked why I did that. What he had done to earn it. He could have questioned my sanity with the teasing smile that only just covered the actual question like so many people did nowadays. But he didn't.

For that I was eternally grateful.

We didn't make it to the bed, and I have to say that _not_ having to make it to the bedroom is one of the saving graces of not being on the Normandy. We don't have to make it to the captain's quarters. We're not going to have to worry about a crew member walking in on us, or EDI interrupting to ask a question, or Joker taking a crack at you the next day because he knows exactly what you did and where.

He only asks a question when we're lying drowsy and deliciously warm in a beam of sunlight filtering through the bay window. His hand is tracing circles on my shoulder blade and his breath tickles the top of my head.

"What were you working on?"

He had noticed the various datapads scattered on my desk, the clumsy responses I'd handwritten on scrap paper because sometimes writing was cathartic, and I needed that a lot these days.

"More questions."

The Alliance News Network had sent over a list of questions they wanted answers to for another broadcast. HQ had sent over an "advisor" to "talk" about the war. I wasn't stupid. It was a shrink, and they were doing an evaluation.

They've been asking the same questions for months now, the same questions disguised as different ones. They want to know exactly what happened after I reached the beam. I've told them there were bodies everywhere, told them the Illusive Man was there, that he had been indoctrinated. I recount how we activated the console and watched the arms open, how Anderson died before we realized nothing was happening.

Beyond that things grow fuzzy, they get clouded and dim. I remember Hackett's voice but his words are hard to recall even though his intent was clear. Nothing was happening. The crucible wasn't activating.

There was blood, my blood. There was pain and frustration and all-encompassing exhaustion. I was so damned tired. But I pulled it together. I put on my big-girl pants and got the job done. I just couldn't remember how.

"I feel like this endless parade of shrinks is just the Alliance's convoluted way of seeing if I'm as fucked up in my head as they think I am. If I'm just hiding what happened up there. I mean how can I not remember? How can I forget that crucial piece? I don't know! I wish I did. Maybe then they'd lay off this persistent attempt that's making me feel like I'm off my rocker.

"Crazy, old Shepard. That's what I am. The soldier who used to be great, who went off the deep end trying to save the galaxy. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what it feels like I am to them."

"Shepard you have to know that you're not crazy," Kaidan says, "No matter what the Alliance thinks… what they do. You're not."

I sit up and look out the window, watch the shuttles buzz about the harbor, as small as flies. "But what if I am and we just can't see it?"

I look down at him; see his eyes crinkle in the corners as he watches my face. "I've done a lot of crazy things, Kaidan. I've pulled a lot of reckless stunts and shit calls. My decisions… they're so damn heavy."

Heavy was an understatement. Heavy was a full suit of armor after a get-out-by-the-skin-of-your-teeth kind of mission. The kind that leaves you exhausted for the next five days when you don't have a minute to recover. Heavy was the weight of a full-blooded Krogan who just risked his ass to make sure you got out alive.

Heavy didn't begin to do justice to leaving a friend behind because it was the only way to stop a rogue Spectre, and you had to make a choice. It didn't begin to cover explaining her sacrifice to her sisters and mother and wanting to cry with them except that wasn't what a soldier was supposed to do. Heavy couldn't even touch the destruction of a relay, an action whose cost was paid for with hundreds of thousands of lives.

"Hey. Hey, look at me," he says when I wanted to drop my face into my hands. "There's always going to be someone to question your decisions but they weren't there. They don't know you like I do, like Jeff does, or Liara, or Garrus, or Tali. They don't know you like your crew knows you.

"You made the calls no one else would. You did what had to be done. Nobody can fault you for that. We won because you were willing to do the things no one else could have brought themselves to do. We knew this war wasn't going to be simple. That it was going to demand everything we had and then some. You did that. You pulled together the "and then some"."

Maybe he was right or maybe he saw what he wanted. But then so could the Alliance. They could be seeing what they wanted to see. I didn't know anymore.

"You're right," I say, because I know I've already said more than I wanted to.

We both know it goes deeper than that but we both let it go for the moment.

He kisses me again, a slow passionate thing that says more than he puts to words, then heads to the shower. I wrap myself in a quilt and lean against the window sill staring at my reflection as much as the scenery. Maybe more.

I don't always recognize the person looking back at me. Her face is my face. The angle of her jaw, the set of her eyes, the full bottom lip. Those are my features. It's the haunted look in her eye, the guardedness she lets show in her face. It's all the things that I never used to see. That's what I don't recognize, that's the woman that can't be me.

But she is.

And I have to figure out why she looks that way.

Is it something that comes with age? With going through an impossible war and living to tell about it? Is it regret?

What is it?

I'm left with so many questions.


	18. Chapter 18

It's Friday. Guy's night out.

When Kaidan and Joker reconciled, really reconciled, it made me happier than I told either of them. I needed them to get along more than I needed the Geth and Quarians too. Well maybe 'more' is an overstatement, but for sure just as much. Jeff's a brother to me. He's stuck with me through it all. He's the reason I'm alive, several times over.

And Kaidan. Well Kaidan's the love of my life and he's saved my life too. In more ways than one.

But anyway, it's their guy's night out. What they do is a mystery to me. I don't ask and they don't tell.

It means they're on their own and I have time to myself.

That usually means Jack comes over and we spend the night sprawled on the porch smoking and reminiscing. We laugh at the bitch she used to be, at the bitch she still is. We recall the tight squeezes, the daring missions and the stupid speeches. They were lame, Shepard, Jack always tells me, but I can tell she doesn't really think so. She gives her own speeches to her students now.

I like hanging out with Jack. She never makes me feel like the Shepard I was isn't the Shepard I am. She doesn't see my prosthetic leg as the end of the old Shepard. It's just another war wound, another story to tell.

"Hey did you hear about that time Shepard stuck it to the fuckin' Reapers. She lost her leg and she still destroyed those bastards!" Jack would say through a puff of smoke, and then we both would laugh.

"We all stuck it to the Reapers," I'd correct, taking a long drag and feeling the smoke tickle my throat as I exhaled slowly.

"Hell yeah!"

Those were good nights. Good times. But tonight I ask for a rain check. We make plans for the next Friday; same time, same place.

When she hangs up I turn to the stack of files and datapads I've pulled out of a box and laid out on my desk.

I've been putting this off for a long time. For years. It's far past the time I read these, even though the dread in the pit of my stomach tries to convince me to wait just a little longer.

I turn on the first datapad, the one with a handwritten note from Miranda. Start here, Shepard, it says. So I do. Call me when you go through these. But I don't. This is something I have to do alone.

At least for now.

The pad flickers to life and the words 'Lazarus Project' cross the screen.

"Shit," I breathe out loud to no one but the empty house.

I'm going to do this. I'm really going to do this. I've taken down a Reaper, blown up the Collector homeworld. I can review some damn logs.

I start the feed and Miranda's voice plays, distant and slightly tinny. "The Illusive Man has assigned me to head the Lazarus Project and says the delivery will be made shortly. T'Soni's information was correct and allowed for acquisition of the body." I close my eyes as she continues. "Without further information I will need to perform an examination upon arrival to determine how much of the body is still intact. Significant trauma is expected."

There's a pause between entries before Miranda's voice returns. A stranger wouldn't hear the excitement in her voice, but I do. It's there in just the slightest inflection, the smallest hint that she's been presented with a challenge she finds worthy of her time.

It just so happens that challenge is putting me back together again.

"Humpty dumpty," I mutter to myself as she begins again.

"Commander Shepard has been recovered. The Lazarus project will proceed as planned. The body had been placed in a preservation chamber either while still on Alchera or very shortly after as no decay has set in, which is fortunate. The physical trauma is extensive." She pauses again and I hear the sound of a pressure chamber hissing open. "Preliminary tests indicate that the brain is completely intact, though the rest of the body has suffered greatly. Bone scans indicate no less than one hundred fractures , a complete separation of the both arms from the body; the left at the elbow and again mid-humerus. The right arm broken in three places at the shoulder, mid-humerus and wrist. The pieces of each arm has been recovered which will speed the recovery process along greatly…"

Pictures flash onto the datapad and for a second my brain has trouble registering exactly what I'm looking at.

Me.

I'm just a mass of bruised and broken armor and flesh. Any recognizable part of me is bent at an odd angle or colored in such a color as flesh should not be. It's disturbing and for the first time it's not meds on an empty stomach, or even the flu that causes my stomach to rebel.

I barely make it to the bathroom before I'm throwing up what seems like everything I've ever eaten. My stomach heaves until all I can do is gag and lean against the cool porcelain, waiting for the nausea to pass.

I can't believe they brought me back.

I can't believe even Miranda with all of her intelligence and perfect genes managed that.

There was nothing recognizable as me in that mass of…broken human. Nothing. I had known it would be bad, but even though I had fallen from space I hadn't expected that, hadn't pictured my body being broken into so many pieces.

I flush the toilet, wash my face and rinse my mouth. I take a deep breath and debate if I need to puke again, but I don't.

I go back to the datapads and I force myself to look.

The images are graphic; but Miranda's no-nonsense voice walks me through every injury, every minute detail. I don't know that it helped, at least not yet, but it is informative.

The scans are less gruesome though just as horrifying as my skeleton had been reduced to a jumble of puzzle pieces.

"I'm surprised I'm still not on that operating table," I whisper to the pictures.

And I am surprised at that, and so much more. I'm surprised that I can walk, or handle a gun, or even just hold Kaidan's hand. I'm surprised I can feel his skin beneath my fingertips, his lips against mine. I shouldn't be able to do any of those things. I shouldn't be able to speak, or try to dance when I think no one's watching because the song is just too good to pass up. I can drive and shoot. I fought the damn Reapers after all of this. But I don't know how.

The terminal beeps, signaling an incoming call and when Miranda's number flashes on screen I momentarily wonder at this coincidence, but I quickly realize nothing with Miranda is a coincidence. She must have had some kind of alert when I turned on the datapad to call me so she could see if I was alright, or had questions, or was puking my guts out in the bathroom…

I don't answer.

It's not because I don't like Miranda, or because I don't think she can help me through this—it's simply something I need to do on my own.

A different chime sounds; she left a message.

I'll listen to it later, when I can hear her voice and it's not reciting a list of injuries longer than the roster of crew aboard the Normandy. When I can imagine it's not me she's talking about.

I close my eyes again when I can't look at anymore of the images, at least for now. Miranda has finished listing off the worst of my injuries and her and Wilson are discussing the cybernetic implants to be used. They're arguing really, but Miranda will win because she's the boss and also because she knows better.

"Official cause of death was suffocation, though Shepard appears to have sustained significant blunt force trauma not long before she died. The estimates from the shreds of recoverable information from her suit and also from the manufacturer specs are that, assuming a full supply of stims and medigel, and with the leak rate calculated, Commander Shepard survived for eight to eleven minutes before her heart and lungs ceased working, three to four minutes before she fell unconscious." Miranda's voice softens just a hair. "Damn, that's a long time," she murmurs.

It had been a long time, though when you're floating through the abyss of space with no hope of a rescue and your oxygen supply running out you're really not counting minutes. You spend those countless seconds wishing that it was over at the same time you're wishing you had all the time left you thought you'd have when you rolled out of bed that morning. You can feel the suit applying the medigel and the stims in a futile attempt to keep your body going when in reality it would be far more merciful to just let it go.

I watched the Normandy disintegrate. I felt the pain in my heart at all the lives lost, the people I had known who would never see another day. I felt the pain in my abdomen where the blast had caught me, knowing, even though I wasn't a doctor that that kind of pain meant something was really wrong. Deadly wrong. And I felt the searing agony in my lungs as they fought for the oxygen that rushed into the vacuum of space. There was no hope for me. Only pain.

And it wouldn't seem to end.

Eventually it had, though apparently I had survived a lot longer than I remember, my suit still fighting to keep me going even after my consciousness had fled the scene.

There's a lot I only just grasp because Miranda's logs are far more detailed than the average person could hope to translate but I get the big picture, and some of the smaller ones. There are vids of cybernetics being grafted in, or of installation of the titanium rods linking the shattered pieces of my skeleton back together. Camera 322 shows injections to restore the cells and the flow of blood through my veins. There's an additional log by Wilson proclaiming that the heart has begun to beat again. He sounds excited. Camera 561 shows a cybernetic implant being grafted into my spine near the site of what I can only assume are two titanium discs to replace the lumbar vertebrae that seem to be missing.

Whenever I think there can't possibly be more another camera flickers to life.

I guess I could say it's a gift, really. I mean how many people get to see their body in such stark detail? How many people get to look back later and watch themselves being resurrected from the dead?

I suspected that number was way past 'damn few' and speeding rapidly towards 'only you'.

I rest my face on my folded arms as I try to comprehend exactly what that would come to mean.

#

"Shepard?"

I don't hear Kaidan until he's already standing behind me with his hands on my shoulders.

I look at the evidence of everything I've been doing the past several hours and then I check my watch, "You're home early," I say trying to shuffle the datapads back into the box.

"Miranda called me."

I should have known that Miranda would try Kaidan when she couldn't get ahead of me. I just wish it hadn't been on his night out with Joker. It was a standing tradition but it wasn't like he got a lot of time to kick back where he wasn't working or putting up with me.

"I'm sorry. She shouldn't have."

He kneels next to me, "I'm glad she did. Shepard, you don't have to go through this by yourself." He motions to the datapads.

"No, I really do…did…"

"Did it help?" he asks.

"I don't know yet," I tell him, truthfully. "It's a lot to take in."

I tell him everything I learned. I tell him about the condition of my body, the pictures and their effects on me. I tell him about all the cameras, all the cybernetics. I tell him that Miranda and the Illusive Man argued about implanting a control chip; how Miranda apologized to me later for wanting it.

I watch his face as I talk. I watch him like he watches me. And when I stumble through the hard parts he twines his fingers with mine.

"Before the assault on the Illusive Man's base I hadn't realized I'd been brain dead. I still don't think I had comprehended just how bad it was. The images…they were…enlightening." And horrifying, and nauseating. I shudder at the memory and Kaidan presses my hand against his cheek. "I was so broken. I just don't know how they put me back together again. How they brought me back."

"I don't know either," Kaidan tells me, "But I'm sure glad they did."

I smile at him because Kaidan's been my constant. My rock. He's the solid foundation I've needed in order to put myself back together and start over, even when I wish I could have done it by myself.

"I am too. I just wish I understood how. I wish I didn't have more questions than when I started going through all of these files."

"Why don't you call it a night, and next time you want to go through them we can do it together. Does that sound okay?" Kaidan suggests, pulling me to my feet and wrapping me in his arms. He smells like the rain with a hint of smoke.

"That sounds like a plan," I agree.

He leads me back to our bedroom and I don't protest as he traces my scars and kisses my mouth. Cerberus may have put my body back together but Kaidan was the one who picked up the pieces of my soul.


	19. Chapter 19

Sweat pours down my forehead and I curse when my eyes burn. My shot goes wide and I hear the buzzer ding.

"Simulation failed."

I huff out a sigh and pull off my helmet to wipe my forehead. "Restart."

I steal my resolve and hoist my sniper rifle up against my shoulder. I've been coming to the sim labs every day for the past week. It gives me something to do with those long afternoon hours I have gotten used to spending on the couch. Reconditioning is important. That has only been made more obvious after a week of obscenity-filled simulation attempts.

I haven't passed a single one yet.

The lights dim and I crouch behind a crate prepared for the moment the buzzer sounds and the sim begins.

The comm in my helmet crackles to life. "Hey Commander, you ready to get your game on?"

"Joker?"

"The one and only."

"What are you doing here?"

"EDI told me you've been coming every day and I thought we could make it like old times. You just listen to Joker as he directs your ass out of tight squeezes. How does that sound?"

I can't help the grin. "Sounds good."

The buzzer dings and my mind focuses on the task at hand—at least I'm still able to concentrate. This simulation looks like the streets of London. A banshee's shriek confirms it. I try to pretend the readings don't tell me that my heart rate stuttered a bit when I heard that god awful wail.

"You've faced a thousand of these," Joker's voice says in my earpiece. "Take a deep breath."

I listen to him. I feel the air in my lungs and I lean out from cover and sight the banshee in my scope. I squeeze off two rounds in quick succession before I have to duck out of the way of an energy blast. I feel a twinge in my back and I suck in a breath as I load a new clip and lean out of cover aga—OH SHIT!

I roll away from the banshee, coming up wrong on my leg and book it for the overturned tank thirty paces to my left.

"To your right!" Joker calls out and I follow his instructions because I trust him. There's a kit full of grenades and I take the opportunity to lob a few at the banshee, which makes it collapse as it wails again.

"Thanks Joker," I pant as I lean against a barrel to catch my breath.

"No problem." There's a pause. "You know, when I get you through this you're totally buying the next six-pack of strawberry soda."

"I'll buy the next dozen."

I hear the next wave before I see them. From the grunts and snarls it's a group of cannibals, and they're closing in on my position.

"Nine o'clock. Six of the ugly guys."

They're all ugly but I know what he means. Cannibals. I switch to my assault rifle and take out the first four in quick succession. The next get close enough that I feel the hairs on the back of my neck rise as I try to take them out and duck at the same time. It's too easy to forget these things are just simulations. They aren't really real.

"Oh fu—"

Joker's voice is a steady presence in my ear. "Commander, you got this. Breathe."

I wasn't sure he really knew how close to not having this I was but I didn't want him to find out so I buckled down and pushed past the pain in my leg.

_Okay, Shepard, you can do this. You've done this a thousand times._ I leap over the crate and pull myself up onto a shipping container to get a better view of the battlefield. Two marauders, seven more cannibals, a handful of husks. No big guys. Yet.

I load a fresh clip in my rifle and sight the marauders. Them first. The bastards had a nasty habit of giving the others extra shield plating and I didn't need them to get any extra help.

There's movement at my elbow and my heart jumps into my throat until I realize I know the silver figure crouching down beside me. "EDI?"

"I came to back you up, Shepard. You haven't run a mission solo since the Alpha Relay incident, excluding your dive to confront Leviathan, of course. I thought I could help."

She's right, and it makes me realize I'm judging myself on my ability to run missions I haven't run solo since long before the Reaper War.

"Thanks EDI."

"I have your back, Shepard."

And she does. With her at my six I am able to focus on the task in front of me, knowing no one would sneak up behind me.

A single shot takes out the first marauder. "One." It takes two for the next. "Two." The cannibals are close enough that I switch to my assault rifle and pump them full of bullets. "Three, four, five." I reload. "Six, seven, eight, nine."

EDI has downed the husks and I slide down to sit and reload both weapons. "What do you see Joker?"

"Field is quiet."

It might be quiet, but the buzzer hadn't sounded. There is more to come.

"There's been one banshee. There are always more big ones," I tell myself aloud.

A roar shatters the silence and EDI shouts "Brute!"

"Coming in fast at your two o'clock, Shepard!" Joker tells me.

I get out of the way just in time and send EDI to a high position so she can cover me as needed. Who knows when the sim will throw more our way.

My sniper rifle will be of no use now. The brutes have a nasty habit of getting up close fast. I toss a couple grenades behind me to distract it long enough for me to get to a more defensible position.

"You can do this, Shepard," Joker says and I'm grateful for his presence all over again.

"Yeah. You're right. I can."

"When you're done with this can I get that in writing?" he jokes, giving me something focus on beside the pain and the fear. I don't like that there's fear in my gut, twisting around my belly like a living thing intent on breaking me down.

_Fear will hold you back. It will cripple you worse than any battlefield injury_, my old CO used to say, and he was right. Here I was with half a leg gone but fear was the thing keeping me from facing this beast head on.

"Cover me!" I yell to EDI and I make my stand.

The beast is bigger than I remember, or maybe I just feel smaller.

_FOCUS!_ I yell at myself, and I do even though it's so far past difficult I'm not sure how I got there.

I aim for the weak areas, the joints, the small gaps where the plating doesn't cover the beast's still tough-as-nails interior. I line up my shot but it takes too long, the beast moves too fast. I have to roll out of the way as it launches itself in my direction.

EDI throws a grenade, and then another, and they provide me enough time to situate myself, line up my shot and fire. It's not enough to bring it down… at least not right away.

It's like a dance. It attacks, I roll out of the way, EDI distracts it. Joker's voice chants in my ear, _Ice cold strawberry soda waiting for you when you take that fucker down, Shepard._

A strawberry soda sounds nice.

A broken skull not so much.

Okay, so I won't really have a broken skull—it's just a simulation after all—but I've breezed through these in less time than it takes to chug a cold brew and I've been at this one way longer than that. It's embarrassing.

Finally the beast goes down with an angry howl and I don't even make it back to the edge of the room before I collapse in a heap on the floor. My leg aches. My shoulder feels bruised from the butt of my sniper rifle slamming into it on recoil. It's a wonder it's not out of its socket.

A can drops into view and when I pull off my gloves and wrap my fingers around it I sigh in relief. It _is_ ice cold.

"You're a good man, Jeff Moreau, no matter what they say about you," I groan with relief as I pop the tab and take a long swallow.

"Please, they only say good things about me. It's the company I keep they have choice words to mince over."

I snort, and it's uncouth but who cares.

I earned it.


	20. Chapter 20

I'm not a good person.

People argue with me when I say that. Sometimes they're so against it that they won't even listen to me explain why. For most of them it's not that they really care about me as a person. They care about me as an ideal. They care about themselves. They care because they aren't okay with the idea of idolizing someone who isn't inherently good.

How can you sacrifice everything you did for the entire galaxy without being good? That's what they wonder. It's what they ask me.

But you see, it's not about the big picture. At the end of the day, or the end of the war it's not the outcome that sits with you—even though it does sit with you in everything you are, in everything you do, in everything you see. No, it's about the lives you took, the innocent people you couldn't save. It's about the planets that lie in ruin even though we won.

Every call I had to make; every time I had to turn away from aiding some colony because the war needed me somewhere else, or showing up too late because I'd been on a mission more important than saving them was another point against me. It's about living with those choices and finding a way to live with yourself and the blood on your hands.

It's about a person trying to play God when they can barely play themselves.

It makes me wonder what Ash would say. She was young in so many ways, but wise in a lot of ways that mattered. She'd have some grand words of wisdom for me. Or she'd tell me to buck the hell up. _God never gives you more than you can handle, Shepard… Even if you don't believe in him._ Yeah, that sounded like Ash.

I miss her every day.

There's just no way I'm a good person after all the things I've done. When you've blown up a relay, killed hundreds of thousands of people with one action, that label just doesn't apply anymore. It doesn't mean I don't try to do good. It doesn't mean that I am bad or evil. But even if I'm a hero. I'm not good. Those two things don't go hand in hand anymore. If they ever did.

We always hurt someone. We always try hard, but come up short. Even when we succeed things never go as planned.

Believe me, I wish they did.

When I was a fresh-faced recruit I had believed things were going to be different. I was going to be good…do good. I was going to save people and arrive in time, guns blazing. But time passes and it teaches me lessons I never wanted to learn. It opens my eyes to truths they don't tell you about in basic.

I learn to shoulder a different burden. It's not the weight of armor and a galaxy's fate riding on my every move. It's everything that comes after. The lives lost and the lives saved. The worlds obliterated and those left to rebuild from the rubble.

We talk about time, and what that means to me now in my next therapy session. Sheila asks me to go back and think about the person I used to be versus the person I am now.

"How far?" I ask her, looking up from the cup of tea I have my hands wrapped around.

"As far as you want," she tells me.

I probably don't go back as far as she wants—I doubt she expects me to recall the day we met. But it seems as good a place to start as any.

_Two Years Earlier..._

"Commander Shepard."

I don't look over at the therapist standing in my doorway, even though I can see her reflection in the window. She's short, wiry, and not wearing an Alliance uniform. I guess when the admirals ordered me to see a shrink they went for the best and not necessarily those within their organization. How very progressive of them.

I might be pissed but I have been raised better than this. I push myself up as much as I can and look over at her. "Doctor—"

"Sheila Connor. You can call me Sheila."

"You can just call me Shepard," I tell her, since we're giving names.

She steps up to the bed and for some reason it's reassuring that she doesn't have her datapad out already, ready to record my every word. "It's an honor to meet you. Truly. I can't thank you enough for what you did."

It's hard to dislike someone that carries such plain honesty in their voice as she does. "You don't have to thank me. Everyone did their part."

"That's true," she says. "But we couldn't have done it without you."

"That's nice of you to say."

The look she gets seems significant; and maybe someone like Kelly Chambers would be able to tell exactly what it meant but I didn't.

"Do you mind if I sit down?" she asks and I wave my hand at the empty chair.

She settles herself in the chair and smiles serenely at me. "How are you feeling?"

I'm feeling pissed. I'm feeling useless. I'm feeling like my body isn't my own anymore. I don't understand why my survival is such a big secret. I don't understand why the Admirals won't even tell my crew I survived. All this from a hospital bed I can't even get out of. I thought living under the shadow of a hopeless cause had been bad.

This was worse.

"Fine. I'm fine."

"You'll forgive me if I disagree," she says, and I don't want to forgive her but I smile tightly instead of saying so. She smiles back. She continues, unfazed. "You don't have to agree, just as long as you hear me out."

"I hear everyone out," I tell her. "Or at least I used to. So talk away and I'll give it my best shot."

"I appreciate that, Commander."

"You can call me Shepard," I tell her again, though it's not like I really care if she calls me Commander. It's practically a second name to me.

"Alright… Shepard. Why don't we start with you telling me a little bit about yourself," she suggests.

I look at her, "Why don't you start by telling me what _you_ know about _me_."

I don't think she's going to answer but she settles further into her chair. "Do you want to hear the I-read-your-file version, or do you want to hear the savior-of-the-galaxy version?"

"I didn't realize there were two so you can pick."

"Well, from your file, you're a single child, raised in a military family. Your parents were both with the Alliance when you were born; your mother still is. Rear Admiral, is that right?" I nod and she continues. "You joined on your eighteenth birthday, and progressed quickly. Shore leave on Elysium ended with you single-handedly rallying the people to fight off an attack by Batarian slavers until help arrived. You were awarded with the Star of Terra and recommended for N7 training, which you made seem easy. From there a position as XO on the Normandy and we all know the rest."

She continues before I can say anything. "But what everyone says on the streets? That's a different story entirely. People call you a savior. They call you a reaper-killer."

I flash back to Leviathan and I think maybe that title isn't the badge of honor the people think it is, but they didn't see what I saw.

"They say Shepard is a risk taker; a dare devil. Willing to piss people off and make the daring calls no one else would for the good of all. They call you the greatest hero the galaxy has ever known."

"Sounds like sensationalism if you ask me," I reply. "These people think I'm some kind of superhero. They see me as invincible, as someone that can never get knocked down. I've heard it said. _Not even the void can hold _Shepard," I mimic in the deep voice of the reporter who'd said it on some broadcast just yesterday. They had been talking about my disappearance, and about my listing as MIA. "They have no idea where I am but they still believe I'm just going to walk out of the rubble unscathed. They're expecting that any minute!"

I shake my head before plowing on. "They don't see that I'm not anything more than a soldier. Am I good? Damn right, I am. I'm one of the best soldiers there is, but that doesn't make me any more qualified to shoot Reapers out of the sky. Anyone with a brain and the right equipment can do that. I'm not anything special; I'm human. I'm just like them.

"I get beat up and bruised. I have my bad days. I have mornings where that third cup of coffee just doesn't cut it and I want to crawl back under the covers…but I can't. Or I couldn't…" I trail off. I've said too much. "I'm not a hero. I just did my duty."

Maybe that's too modest, but then I've never been the gloating type. What I did, well anyone could do it, even if Admiral Hackett himself says otherwise. It doesn't take my dossier to kill a Reaper. It was just a burning desire to beat the crap out of them mixed with a touch of crazy and a bit of luck. If I hadn't done it someone else would have; of that I was absolutely sure.

_You need to take credit where credit is due, Commander_. Allers had told me after more than one interview. _The people know you're a hero. It's okay to act like it._

But I wasn't a hero. I was a soldier. An N7 operative. A Spectre. I was a fighter, it was in my blood.

That's just who I was.

It didn't make me smarter than anyone else, or more capable. It didn't make my rifle aim truer or my shields hold longer. I was the same as everyone else, on every level… well maybe not _every_ level. Not since Cerberus rebuilt me. But the point I was getting at was that if I hadn't been born, or if my luck had run out at any of those points when my luck should have run out, someone else would have been able to do what I did. I believed that, even if no one else did.

"You've paid a heavy price for just doing your duty," Sheila says, catching me off guard because I'd been expecting yet another attempt to convince me I was more than I knew I was.

"Yeah, but I'm alive. Too many people can't even say that."

We both are silent for a long moment, acknowledging without words the countless lives lost to the Reapers. It could be millions, I suspected it was more. I suspected there were billions who had been wiped out by the Reapers. Billions I had been too slow to save.

"Yes, there are, but there are even more that are still alive. And you're one."

"Yeah. I am."

It's not the words that make her look up. I know that. It's the tone. Her brow furrows and concern darkens her eyes. "Shepard. Are you saying what I think—"

"I didn't say anything," I interrupt, even though we both know it's a lie. Sometimes you don't have to use words to speak.

"Regardless, I need to know you're not a danger to yourself."

I couldn't hold back the snort of laughter. "I have always been a danger to myself," I say automatically. "That doesn't mean I'm suicidal."

I'm not surprised that she looks at me with confusion in her face. It's a hard concept to grasp for those who make their living putting themselves in harm's way.

"I'm not sure there's a distincti—"

"Trust me, there is," I cut her off. "It's not about me wanting to end my life. It's about the fact that doing my job means gearing up and putting my life on the line. Sometimes a mission ends and my clip's still full. Other times I get out only because my shields held up five seconds longer than they should have. I go out thinking I'm coming back, even though the reality is that there's a very real possibility that I won't."

She looks thoughtful but she remains silent. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

"I've tried dying, and somehow it just never seems to last."

That doesn't lighten the mood like it would have with any of the members of my crew and it makes me realize no one knows me like they did. It makes me realize how much I've come to rely on them.

It makes me feel alone in a city full of people when I used to be an island unto myself.

It was easier when the only person I had to worry about at the end of the day was myself. Feelings didn't get hurt; hearts didn't get broken. You didn't lose friends.

But you didn't find them either.

"Are you alright?"

The question startles me because no one's asked me that since I woke up after the Citadel blast. Miranda had started to ask, once, but she had stopped herself. That had been the only time. I tell her that. "You know you're the first person that's actually asked me that?"

"Am I?"

I nod. "It's funny, really. Here I am in a hospital, of all places; the kind of place where people make it their business to know if you're alright. Doctors come by twice a day; nurses even more than that. A few friends, the ones that pulled me out from the rubble and saved my life. They all stop in. I'm with someone more often than I'm alone and here we are months down the line and finally someone has the guts to step up and ask."

I look out the window, to the rare slash of blue sky. "They'll ask me how the pain is; if the meds are helping. They'll check their machines and write in their charts. They'll do all of that but they won't ask me if I'm alright. It's like they're scared to realize that I'm human just like the rest of them… that there's more to me than what they show on the vids. It's like they're afraid they're going to open their eyes and see the real Shepard."

The way she looks at me is how I imagine EDI looked at data. Detect, identify, analyze. I wonder if I'm making this a challenge for her. I kind of hope I am.

I'm all about challenges, making them, breaking them, but never being broken by them. That is not in my vocabulary. Or at least it wasn't. Now I'm beginning to feel like I might have finally met my match. I had never been laid up (and conscious of the layup) for this long before. I've never had such little control over my body. It's frustrating and infuriating and disheartening, and that might just be the worst feeling of all.

I thought I'd run out of no-hope situations once the Reaper War was over, but it seems like I might have been wishing on something too good to be true.

"And what do you see when you look at yourself?" she asks me.

That's easy. "I don't see anything."

"What do you mean?" she asks, puzzled.

"I mean I haven't looked at myself since before I came back to Earth. Haven't been able to get out of bed save for that one failed attempt to leave, let alone look in a mirror."

I can tell she knows I'm being overly analytical in order to avoid her question. Some people would get fed up with my bullshit—hell some people already have. I know she's good at what she does because she just smiles, writes down a note on the datapad she finally pulls from her bag and then crosses one leg over the other like she's settling in for the long haul.

"Well then, that seems like a good place to start."


	21. Chapter 21

_Author Notes_: I have written a lot of narrative that takes place in the time before the original start of this story so I'm trying to incorporate those as "flashbacks" in these chapters. I hope it works but if it's too confusing please let me know and I'll try to change it up. I'm not sure how many more of these "flashbacks" I'll work in so it may be a moot point, but if this chapter is confusing let me know.

In my own personal experience battling depression is different for every person, and I've tried to represent this as best I could based on that experience and with how I feel Shepard would handle it. I've taken some liberties with how I think Shepard and her therapist would hash things out as they go.

**O~o~O**

I'm told the first word out of my mouth was an emphatic, if slightly hoarse sounding "Fuck!"

They had lifted up a piece of the rubble that was all that remained of the Citadel and had found Commander Shepard trapped beneath looking beat to all hell. Luckily it had been Jack that had found me so she laughed off my exclamation with a relieved chuckle. It must have been the pain talking because I don't remember any of it but apparently my next words were "Everything fucking hurts!"

They had me wrapped up and pumped full of medigel by the time the field team arrived leaving nothing for them to do but transfer me to a nearby field hospital. I was fading in and out of consciousness by then, my blood leaving a trail on the bare concrete floor as they rushed me to surgery. The medigel saved me. My suit had given up well before I'd been found, alive only because of those damn Cerberus implants. The ones I still wish I didn't have to be thankful for.

But I am now. Back then it was only because I had to be. I don't remember much, brief flashes, but Sheila is persistent—she knows me well enough to be able to push me out of my comfort zone. I'm comfortable enough to let her.

The next thing I remember is waking up to sunlight on my face. It was warm and unfamiliar and welcome all at the same time. It told me I was planet side, and I assumed it was Earth, but there was really no telling with how long I'd been out. But it had felt like Earth.

I close my eyes and try to relive those moments for the first time ever…

**O~o~O**

A face swims into view and the blue-grey eyes are familiar. I struggle to find a name in a head full of jumbled thoughts and clouded memories. It takes me too long, and we both know it. If it had been a matter of pulling the trigger I'd be the loser of that draw.

Luckily it wasn't.

"Miranda," I finally manage, and my voice comes out dry and cracked. My throat aches and I swallow thickly against the pain.

She nods. "Good, Shepard. You remember me."

Why wouldn't I remember her? She had been my XO when we'd taken down the—the—

She must see the panic in my face. "It's okay, Shepard, it's normal not to remember everything. Calm down," she urges, her voice softer than I remember. "Listen to the monitors, that's your heart rate. You need to bring it down. Just like you do on the battlefield."

I hear the blip of the monitor as it races. I can feel it pounding in my own chest and I take a breath, not deep because it hurts too badly, but I breathe. I close my eyes and try to clear my mind. It helps, but not like it used to. The pace slows, the pounding eases but not like it did for the calm, collected Shepard I was before.

"Very good." She taps something out on her datapad and then looks back down at me. "I don't know how you did it again, Shepard, but you're alive. When the Citadel exploded… I just… We all thought you were gone."

I suck air in through parched lips and try to form my voice around one word. One vitally important word. Her brows furrow when she realizes I'm trying to speak. She leans in even though knowing Miranda she could hear a whisper from twenty paces.

"Normandy?"

She shakes her head and she looks sorry. It's an unfamiliar look on her and I don't like it. I don't like what it implies.

"The Alliance won't tell me anything," she says with a shrug. "I'm Cerberus to them. But I hear things… They lost coms with the Normandy just as the Citadel exploded. No wreckage, but no contact. We don't know where the ship is… or her crew."

That was the worst blow of them all. Worse than the explosions, worse than the fight through London. That was my ship, my crew, my responsibility. They were missing, and I couldn't do a damn thing about it.

It's a Commander's worst nightmare, but they were more than just my command. They were friends, family. I wouldn't have come half as far as I had without them. They were the reason I had made it to the beam.

"Shepard, are you—" She stops herself because she was about to ask if I was alright, and she knows I'm not. Not physically and not burdened by the weight of this news. "Do you need anything?"

I shake my head slowly. Every movement hurts. "No."

She touches my hair softly, "I'll be back. Try to get some rest."

My eyes burn even before her footsteps fade away but I can't stop the tears that slide down my cheeks just like I can't bring back the Normandy, or lead a search party to find them, or stand up on my own.

Just like I can't stop it when my heart rate starts to rise; when the air grows thin in my lungs and the monitors blare with alarm.

They tell me later that it was a panic attack. Nothing major. It happens to lots of people, they say like it's an assurance. I have to remind myself that they aren't soldiers. They haven't been on the battlefield. It's the one place you should be panicking, and the one place you can't.

I don't panic.

But they tell me what I've been through is traumatic. I have been 'traumatized'.

Fuck that.

I say it's not a panic attack. It's not PTSD. It's something else.

They say I'm a soldier, not a doctor. They tell me to trust them but for me trust is earned, not freely given. I insist that it's something else. I know myself. Something isn't right.

But they don't listen.

**O~o~O**

Sheila flips through the old charts. "There was a broken implant, shrapnel," she says, reading the report aloud. "It had found its way into your blood stream; that had caused problems when your heart rate had risen."

She's not a medical doctor but I trust her more than I had trusted the doctors in that London hospital. After putting up with me for two years she's earned it.

"When I woke up after that my parents were there. I do remember that," I tell her and there's humor in my voice; it's an emotion that's slowly been returning. Sometimes I find things humorous that shouldn't be, or that seem so simple they shouldn't leave me breathless with laughter. Sheila tells me it's normal—and for once she gives a snippet of herself to me.

"When you feel numb for a long time these emotions seem so strong, and can be set off at the drop of a hat—for almost no reason at all. I know. I've been there."

I look up suddenly and she meets my eyes. It's the smallest thing, the simplest admission. I don't ask about her past because it's not my place to. She's the therapist, I'm the patient. Even though I don't know the details it's another connection.

"I was so tired," I recall. "And Miranda was standing there telling me my parents were there to see me. It seemed selfish to say I wouldn't see them so I nodded when she asked if she could let them in." I laugh. "She doesn't know my mother. She couldn't have stopped her. I sure as hell couldn't have. Probably still couldn't. My drive—that comes from her."

My mother had fawned over me for as long as she can spare before she's called back to work. _Being an Admiral carries a heavy responsibility, _she told me, like I didn't know. My father patted my hand awkwardly, seeming uncomfortable outside of his garage. I tried to smile even though it hurt like hell, and he told me I did a good job before he followed my mother out the door. Back then I didn't imagine our relationship would get any better. It just goes to show I still can't predict the future. Not that I'd want to.

I open up to Sheila a little more and I talk about Miranda; and I tell her about Jack. "I never would have expected to see those two in the same room of their own volition," I tell her. "They always hated each other. But those two were my near-constant companions those first few months in the hospital."

"Tell me about it," Sheila says.

So I do.

**O~o~O**

Time is a different creature in a hospital. Some days I wake up and it's only been a few hours; other times I wake up and the relief in people's faces tells me it's been days, or weeks, or months. You may wake up exactly as you were before, or with a new scar, or a new IV. You may wake up with a shaved head because they had to drill into your skull to install new implants and remove an old one.

Healing is never simple, even when it's easy, and it's never as easy as it should be.

Jack comes to visit me every couple of days; she's the first Alliance officer who can offer anything remotely close to a debriefing. Even she's not privy to all the news but it's better than nothing.

I'll take what I can get.

"You gave me a hell of a scare, Shepard," she says by way of greeting the first time I see her after I wake up.

I smile, though the pain probably makes it look like more of a grimace. "Sorry 'bout that."

She shrugs and drops into the chair next to my bed. "Whatever."

She tells me she stayed with me the whole time they were fighting to keep me from death's door, and she recounts in her own vivid detail the mad dash from the Citadel wreckage to the hospital, of her waiting impatiently in the cordoned off section where people could wait to see if their loved ones pulled through.

She had been there for hours, through the shouting she was sure meant I was dying; through people coming and going; through five cups of some crap that tasted worse than the instant coffee Gardner had served on the Normandy. It was halfway through that sixth cup when Miranda strode in, as casual as you please, to take over.

"For once I was happy to see that bitch," Jack says, and I know it pains her to say it even now. "I knew she'd get you through. Cerberus hates to see their work go down the tubes."

I tell Jack that Cerberus is going under. That it's probably already done for. The Illusive Man is dead…killed him myself, I say, even though it doesn't seem like it's good enough for her or for me. But I have to remember that he poured four billion credits into bringing me back. I can't hate him for that.

Even though sometimes I really try to.

**O~o~O**

My job had been done. The galaxy has been saved—as much as you can call it saved when planets and civilizations were in ruin, and your crew had disappeared and no one could tell you where they were or even if they lived. As I had laid in that hospital bed staring at the ceiling I had heard Hackett's voice telling me I "did a good job" like it was over. But I guess to them it was.

Somehow we had rallied the galaxy's fleets and somehow we had defeated the Reapers. It seemed impossible. It had seemed unreal. I had made it to the other side, and it was a side I had never expected to see.

When I spoke with my mother on the phone, she had assured me that was just the medication talking. _Look at what you've done_, she said, and I had heard the pride in her voice. It was for her daughter. It was for her daughter's accomplishments, her daughter _the soldier's_ accomplishments. _If they're gone you'll live on and serve in order to honor them. Officers lose crew members in war. It's a hard truth, but we've all faced it._

I had wanted to tell my mother they weren't just crew but I knew she wouldn't understand. They were friends, family; they had been the reason I'd made it as far as I did. But as alike as my mother and I were I knew she wouldn't understand that.

"You tried to convince yourself you weren't hurting," Sheila says when I pause, and I let myself nod.

"It's normal," she tells me. "We don't want to admit we're struggling, that we're not as strong as we always convinced ourselves we were. After such a long time of taking care of yourself and your crew—of taking care of the galaxy—it seems like a failure to admit we need help too. It must have been a hard realization for you."

"Sometimes I think I'm still realizing just how hard it was," I admit.

She tells me there are always going to be hard days because that's how this works. But eventually the good days will fill the majority and the bad days will grow few and further between.

"It's okay to admit you're not okay. You've done your duty. Your crew is safe. The galaxy is saved." She pauses to look me straight in the face and waits for me to look up from staring at my hands.

"You've taken care of everyone else. Now it's time to take care of you."


	22. Chapter 22

"_You've taken care of everyone else. Now it's time to take care of you."_

I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of people that would look at me sideways when they heard what I was doing to "take care of myself". They'd say my first stop should be a spa, or to take a vacation, or something like that. Something Commander Shepard-Madelyne Shepard-doesn't know how to do. Not yet, anyway. Maybe it'll come with time, but not now. Not yet.

I'd kissed Kaidan and he'd asked in every way except with words if I wanted him to come along, if I needed him. I told him I'd be home soon. I didn't tell him that I'd likely need him every step of the way because that need, that desire to keep him close was a crutch in this instance. It wasn't that he wasn't important, it's that there are just some things you have to do by yourself, for yourself. Sometimes you have to prove to yourself you can do it even if-and maybe especially when-you don't think you can.

So I'd taken a transport out to the Attican Traverse, to a planet I hadn't stepped foot on for years. When it comes into view, the bright blue crescent of it's horizon splitting the dark canvas of space I realize those years feel more like a lifetime. Decades. Centuries. Eons.

It's begun healing since I was here last but there will always be reminders. This watery world will always have scars. Just like me.

"Welcome to Virmire, Commander."

I swallow around the lump in my throat and nod at the man before I shoulder my pack and start up the road.

Don't get me wrong I hadn't really wanted to come here but maybe that's just what those walls of defense I've put up are telling me. I know I need to be here, at least for a little while. I needed to come back to this place where everything changed and where I crossed a line I will never step back over.

Even if I wish I could.

The planet was left untouched by the Reaper War and the facility, still in ruins and charred, have been left as they were save for scavengers looking to pawn off anything of value and willing or able to brave the radiation. There wasn't much, only memories of those who gave up everything to stop Saren. It takes a couple hours to get out there, and the shuttle driver tries to convince me there's nothing worth seeing but I insist. I came all this way.

And when I'm standing there finally, ankle deep in water and uncertain if I can even take another step I close my eyes and hope I hear her voice. I just want to hear her again.

Of all the times I've heard Ash, usually when I was strapped to a hospital bed and pumped full of painkillers, I had really hoped I'd hear her when I came back. I don't want her to be here, she deserves better, but I guess I though it might make it easier to do what I had come here for. I'm talking about forgiveness, I'm talking about taking care of myself. It's about letting go. Not forgetting, but moving on.

I don't let myself say I don't deserve it, to hear her or to be forgiven because that's what I've been telling myself all these years and that's what I have to let go of.

Ash will always be on my mind, will always be important to me. She's the reason I'm standing here today; the reason Kaidan's still alive. Hell, the reason any of us are. If it hadn't been for her who knows how this whole thing would have gone down.

_Time had slowed down as her choice had settled heavy on her shoulders. As the realization that she would have to leave someone behind dawned on her she clenched her hand around the butt of her rifle before leveling it off to make another shot. She would have to leave someone behind. If they were going to make it off this planet, if they were going to have any hope of stopping Saren someone would have to die._

_"Commander!" Ashley's voice had been full of conviction, just like always. "Get LT and go!"_

_"Ash-"_

_"We don't have time for me to convince you this is the right call to make. You're going to have to take it on faith!" The sound of gunfire in the background punctuated her statement._

_"I can't leave you-"_

_"Commander!" There was an explosion and the ground had shaken beneath my feet. "Shep," Ash's voice was softer then, insistent. "It has been an honor serving with you. I will hold them off while you get away. Now get Kaidan and go!"_

Just before the com had clicked off her voice had come through one more time, her words stuttered by the booms and blasts of battle, and for a long time I would tell myself it was too broken to make out.

But she had told me to go and I had. I had run just like the tears are running down my face now.

It was time to let go. Not of Ash, but of the guilt for making the choice I did. I can't change it. I can't go back. _Ever forward, Shep_. Ash had smiled at me from over the table where she liked to tinker in the belly of the Normandy. Yes, ever forward.

Forgiving myself won't be easy, and it won't happen overnight, but letting myself make my peace with this place and the ghosts here will be a start. And maybe someday I'll be able to recall Ash without the heavy twist of regret clawing in my belly.

My sensor beeps, telling me the exposure to radiation is beginning to border on dangerous and while those Cerberus implants would help it isn't worth chancing it.

Through the bursts of gunfire and the deafening echoes of explosions her voice had been calm, steady, and full of conviction. It was that same conviction, that same steadfast determination I needed to adopt now.

They may be the last words she ever spoke, and they're the ones I recite now. The ones that have trickled through my mind during the silent hours of my recovery as I struggled through the pain and hopelessness and guilt. The ones I will carry with me as I go, ever forward; as I recover.

"One equal temper of heroic hearts,  
>Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will<br>To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."


End file.
